


Conspiracy

by Eff_Dragonkiller



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Character Bashing, Clone Wars era, Don't copy to another site, F/M, Gen, Happy Ending, Isn't particularly loyal to canon, Jedi having feelings, Not for fans of Anakin Skywalker, Politics, Warning: Threat of Miscarriage, aparently, order 66 averted
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-28
Updated: 2019-06-28
Packaged: 2020-05-28 12:55:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 27,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19394596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eff_Dragonkiller/pseuds/Eff_Dragonkiller
Summary: Plo Koon was fomenting a conspiracy and Obi-Wan Kenobi had a microscopic slaver's chip in flexiplast vial. Sidious might have won the battles, battles the Jedi Order hadn't even known they were fighting, but they weren't going to let him win the war. After all, they were masters at the eleventh-hour victory.





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> There is some intentionally wrong Mando'a in this fic. Some of it is wrong for my convenience. I wasn't going to wade through a grammar on Mandolorian conjugations. Some of it is wrong because the character gets it wrong. It shouldn't be hard to spot.

Plo Koon was hunting. As his sons among the units did, with all the playfulness of teaching and the eager satisfaction that at the end there would be something good. There was his prey at the end of the hall, lingering in the doorway of his own chambers conversing with the man’s own Padawan.

“Ah, Master Kenobi,” the Baran Do Sage lengthened his stride, “I was hoping to get a moment of your time. I have some questions about some of the resources being allotted to the Wolf Pack for the reconstruction effort on Em-Tyli. Per the briefing, we’re to hand over the supplies to local authorities, but I must object. I have quite the philosophical argument for it if you have the time." He extended a hand to Knight Skywalker, whose eyes were already glazing with boredom. "You are welcome to join us, Knight Skywalker." 

“As much as that sounds … educational,” Skywalker blinked, flustered and grasping for a reason to get out of the looming lecture - just as Plo wanted. "But! I promised my men a couple of rounds of sabacc in the barracks.”

“Give them our well wishes, Anakin.” Master Kenobi said with a mischievous smile.

“Of course,” he bowed, “Masters.”

Perfectly willing to follow the Kel Dor to an unknown Temple location, Obi-Wan waited until the hall in their area was empty.

“Alright, Master Koon. There are no supplies currently being allotted for Em-Tyli. Seeing as it was a space station, oh, about four hundred years ago. So, unless my men made a very large mistake…” He huffed a small laugh, “You’ve gotten rid of Anakin, what can I do for you?”

“I do apologize for the subterfuge, but I have a matter of some delicacy to discuss with you.” Plo said as he rang the bell to a housing unit Obi-Wan wasn’t familiar with.

The door opened to Master Depa Billaba’s gentle smile, welcoming the two males in.

“I believe everyone is here, Plo.” She gracefully folded herself down at the tea table, “but you would know better than I.”

“Thank you for agreeing to host this, Depa.” The Sage said, taking the seat near the head of the table, waiting for a moment as she served the last two showing up their tea. “I would have been happy to host you all in my rooms, but sulfur dioxide does such damage to you pesky oxygen breathers.”

There was gentle laughter as the other Jedi in the room acknowledged his quarters wouldn’t have been the best choice.

"I know there has been much intrigue surrounding this meeting, my friends, but what I am about to propose could be seen by those less open-minded as … heresy." He sipped from his special straw.

“Why share it with us? While we are friendly none of us are-,” Depa frowned, out of words she resorted to the mando'ade gesture. Two fingers extended, completing the circle up gesture. Snapping her fingers, “Got it! Intimate friends. None of us are intimate friends or close brothers.”

Jocasta Nu, the woman who had been quite indignant that her archives could have been _wrong_ , fumbled through an imitation of the gesture. “Because of that. Exactly that. I'm not jetiise.”

Obi-Wan placed his teacup back on the saucer. “The word your thinking of is _jetii, jetiise_ is a plural.”

Depa snorted, “And possessive.”

Madam Nu bowed her head briefly in agreement, “Right. I don't know Mandolorian. It wasn’t even among the options when I was learning.” She took a deep breath and a sip of tea, “Plo approached me several months ago, about finding some sort of precedent to argue against the Rule of Attachment within the archives.”

Depa gasped even as Obi-Wan places a hand on the table to steady himself. “Right, heresy.” She shakes her head, “But why now, while we’re at war? Why us?”

“I love my troopers. My Wolfpack.” Plo admitted baldly, “They are the sons I never sought, the breath of joy I did not know I needed. I believe that you both know that feeling.” A moment of quiet lingered at the tea table, “I am willing to leave the Order if it comes to that, but I wanted to make sure there was no room for interpretation. No hope for something else.”

For a moment, Obi-Wan couldn’t speak. He had to swallow his heart back down. He’d spent the entirety of his life fitting himself and then his Padawan into the shape the Order required. That there might be hope to argue with the Council that another form, some flexibility in shape, was not outside of the Force’s will for the Order; It was more than Obi-Wan had ever wished for.

Did it make him a bad Master, that he’d never thought to argue in advance of his student’s needs? Obi-Wan had spent years, over a decade, arguing Anakin’s foibles against the Council, knowing that attempting to shape his Padawan any further would be to break the young boy’s spirit. It was not something Obi-Wan had been willing to do.

Obi-Wan had to live with the weight of the decisions he had made about his padawan. What to encourage and what to prune so that the younger man’s relationship with the Order might calm at some later date.

Not that it appeared to have worked. Anakin listened to him as much as a Hutt did the law. 

Obi-Wan cleared his throat, “Did you find anything, Madam Nu?”

The older woman gave a wry grin, “Oh, I found quite a bit that our esteemed organization does not see fit to teach us, but not anything useful to us.” She pursed her lips, “Or at least not for the reason we’d originally sought.”

“Start with the Rule of Attachment,” Depa said as she sipped at her tea, “has it always existed?”

Jocasta nodded, pulling flexiplast documents to pass around. “Always. Our records go back about four thousand years. There are large stretches of records missing, of course, and reports that have been edited or censored. Even things written in languages we can no longer decipher. But it remains that the sheer amount of information the Order has always required of its members means we still have a very large pool of documentation.”

The documents Obi-Wan was looking at included pictures of original manuscripts written on paper and transcripts taken down from interviews with holocrons of both Sith and Jedi. All were thoroughly rigorous primary sources. “You can be certain of the results?”

“Yes. The Rule of Attachment has always existed. In fact, it began as a rule of celibacy.”

Depa sputtered, choking on the hot liquid going down the wrong pipe, “That- that can't have been fun.”

Plo snorted and Obi-Wan didn’t even bother hiding his grin as he patted the other master on her back.

Jocasta blushed, “Right. I don’t even want to know how they attempted to enforce it, given our own experience with the Rule of Attachment. But part of the reason it appeared to work is that inclusion to the Order was originally done at the end of a being’s life. The Order did not originally raise its members from younglings. The Order was an organization an older being could join and spend the rest of their days dedicated to learning about the force.”

“When did that change?” Obi-Wan asked.

The archivist shrugged, “It happened in stages really, but like all changes with the Order there was a war with the Sith. And the Order opened its doors to anyone who could learn to use the Force and wanted to fight the Sith. Eventually, people became scared, and to protect force-sensitive children the governing body at the time, the Council of Ten - that was the precursor to the Galactic Republic - agreed to allow the Jedi to search out and retrieve those children in bad home situations.”

Obi-Wan had been left on the steps of the Temple, perhaps born on Coruscant, even if DNA testing suggested Stewjon heritage, found by the Judicial shift change. But many of the younglings in the creche were found in dangerous situations because of their Force-sensitive nature; many found by Plo Koon even.

The tension around the low table ratcheted up, Jocasta might not have been a Jedi in the field, but she sat on the council for several decades and had seen more than her fair share of emergency situations. Not all were as dramatic as Anakin’s rescue. Not many were as safe as him.

“Friends,” Master Koon gently reached out through the force to share his compassion and support, “We cannot save them all, but we have saved many. Very many.”

Depa broke the tension, leaning over to grab a hidden box of cookies from a nearby cabinet. She willingly shared them around the table with the human masters. Plo simple slipped a small packet from his pocket to sip from. “So the Rule has always existed. And we're breaking it.”

Plo shook his head, “If that was all, I would not have arranged this. I would have fought the war and eventually left the Order at the end. However-”

Jocasta nodded and visibly took a calming breath, “I found something else. There was a pattern. There were periods of an upsurge of intolerance for the Jedi. Oppression, war, purges, massacres; every 500 to 800 years; and then about a thousand years ago it just stops.”

Depa nodded, a smile on her lips, “The annihilation of the Sith. Light reigns now, perhaps not as well as it could, but we stand in the light and the Sith could not.”

Plo reached out, pressing gentle talons against her skin, “Depa, how do you destroy an ideology? How do you stop the dark side from being used by those who might not know better? We, all of us, have been in the depths of fighting. Of struggling to help our men survive. The dark exists without being shut away, and so too exist those who use it.”

“We already know about Dathomir and the Sisters and Brothers of Night." Obi-Wan agreed. “We knew the dark side was still out there. The Jedi Order has just been blind to it.”

Plo Koon set down his protein smoothie, “I think they've been out there; I think this entire war is manipulated from both sides by them.”

Depa gasped, “Both sides?!”

“Of course it is.” The Negotiator sighed with his whole body. ”Master Billaba, there are perfectly sane senators in 500 Republica from pacifistic societies who are voting to increase the emergency powers of the Chancellor.” He gazed down into the swirling depths of his teacup, he didn’t want to say it. “You think they're preparing for a purge.”

The old Dorian Sage inclined his head, “You know something Obi-Wan?”

The human master pulled out a small tube carrying a single micro-sized data chip. “One of my troopers needed reconstructive surgery. The med-bot removed it- thought it was shrapnel.”

Depa took the tube from the High General, bringing it up to the light to see what was inside. “what is it?”

“I can't gain access to it.” The man shrugged, as though something that could resist Jedi training wasn’t already suspicious. “Not with any hardware, not with any software. I don't know what's on it, but it can't be anything good. Not if it was inside one of my men. Especially not if it is inside all of our men.”

“Are we sure this is in the head of all the troopers?” Madam Nu leaned forward, “I don’t mean to be offensive, but Jedi tend to be overprotective of the troopers they call Vod.”

"Yes," Depa said frowning up at the small conspiracy gathered in her front parlor. “I think we can be certain. The only other legitimate reason the Kamino would have to shove a piece of plexi in their ‘product's' head was if the trooper were ‘glitching'."

“But if they were that problematic,” Obi-Wan interrupted, “Kamino wouldn’t have released them. They would have tried and experimented until the procedure resulted in the product they wanted. All they had to do was accelerate the aging to make up the time. The age of the Vods coming out of Kamino now is eight. I expect that as the war continues we’ll get shinies as young as four and five. They’re good enough by the Kaminoan’s standards that the only thing that separates them from their older kin is experience. Sometimes special training. So, we know the system is stable.”

“So, the Kaminoans definitely know that this is in their heads.” Koon said, “Certainly wasn’t a fluke.”

“They’re chipped.” Jocasta whispered, “like slaves.”

Depa startled, like she hadn’t thought of that before. It was very different to speak philosophically about rights and body consent; the reality of slavery in the galaxy was a very different matter. Everyone sitting at the table felt her reach into the chip with the Force, feeling the edges and shape of the intent that had shaped it. “It's not good, but it’s not an explosive.”

“No,” Obi-Wan agreed, slipping the chip back up his sleeve, “that is one awful thing the chip doesn't do. But that still leaves a lot of options. None of them good.”

Plo Koon grounded himself in the most basic of breathing exercises that any of the Creche younglings could do. He wasn’t sure he felt better, but at least he was capable of speaking. “Will you have your medic droid send the specifics to mine? I will not have my pack be a slave to anything or anyone.”

He cleared his throat of the temper that had crept in. “That was what this meeting was really about. Our troopers are not citizens, they have no rights under any laws of the Republic. After Jocasta told me her theory about the Sith purges, I had a series of nightmares where at the end of the war our troops suffered any number of crimes against sentient beings. Everything from loss of identity to euthanasia, or eternity as laborers. Were it just the Order, perhaps I would not have gone this far, but for my sons - I was compelled to find a way to change that fate.”

Depa didn’t hesitate, giving a firm nod she asked, “What's the plan?”

“I had planned to speak with others likeminded and see who wanted to create a Vod’e-Jedi Order.” He gave a helpless shrug. “I figured if this was a plan of hope and not desperation than I might as well aim for everything.”

Obi-Wan snorted and bemused, he formed his hands into a gesture he’d learned from his own troops on battlefields where it was laugh and dream or die crying. The 212th had more than their share of those nightmares.

Jocasta frowned as amusement from the other masters filled the force, “What does that mean?”

“Figuratively?” Depa smirked and decided to leave out the profanity her Grey usually said it with, “Something like ‘happily ever after’.”

-

Weeks later, aboard her own ship escorting medical supplies and humanitarian aid to recently re-claimed Republic worlds, Depa worried. It was something her Jedi Master had told her would probably always be her struggle. As Mace’s anger was his. And as - though she'd never dared to broach it, such personal struggles were just that, personal - Obi-Wan's insecurities were his own trouble. Though she was more than willing to lay due fault with the adults in his life growing up. The Order, as a whole, didn’t spend near enough time with their younglings; and with this war ongoing, and Plo’s own conspiracy. Depa held herself at fault in this too.

She didn't know where Plo's bit of conspiracy was going. She didn't even know if it was a good idea, but every day a little more Mando’a crept into her vocabulary and everyday Caleb grew closer to their troops. A little less Padawan and a little more Shiny. Depa tried hard as his Jedi Master to teach him to be compassionate, merciful, and affectionate without attachment. As time passed, though, she wondered at the light of life within the clones and the very joy Caleb received from being with them. She meditated on the heresy Plo had seeded in her mind and the heart-stopping shock Obi-Wan had given her with the worry about the chips, and she wondered if what the Order taught was even possible. If attachment didn't go hand in hand with affection and compassion; if it wasn't necessary for a fulfilling life. 

She cried near daily now. For laughing so hard she couldn’t breathe; for missing someone so much she ached. She did more than smile at the shinies in her unit, she sat with them and learned their names, helped them name themselves if they didn’t already have one. She rejoiced when they rejoiced, and she had learnt the litany of names as well as any who grew up in the shadow of the True Mandalorians.

Depa hadn't known such depth of emotion before the clone troopers had weaseled their way into her heart. Looking back on the passion and emotion she had before meeting them she couldn't help but see it as whitewashed and weak compared to the vivid and emotional life she led now. Even the depths of her grief made her stronger. Her conviction and determination to see her troops to the other side of this war strengthened with each day she spent with them.

Across the small meditation room, Caleb frowned and shifted, pulling her attention as he rose from his study. He had started a series of guided meditations on grief, and only a day into the study Depa knew that he was greatly dissatisfied with the quality of guidance the recording had offered. She couldn’t even blame him.

“What is wrong Caleb?” She asked when it became clear that he would not settle.

"Master Depa," Caleb frowned as he stretched out his legs from kneeling. "Do you ever think that Jedi way is wrong?"

Depa carefully did not change a single piece of body language. Perhaps some masters would have been upset, but Depa wanted Caleb to come to his place in the world without reservation or concern. Which could only happen if she made it clear she would always listen. She made the fluid gesture Grey had taught them - willing to listen- though she left off the stuttered motion her commander gave particularly naïve Shinies. The one that she'd always quietly interpreted as - you idiot -. Caleb huffed.

"I can't let them go." He admitted quietly after a moment.

"Ours who march far away?" She thought this might have been it. It was something that she had also struggled with more and more recently. It was what had given Plo’s conspiracy so much ground to grow in her heart and mind. Depa was not content with the lessons of the Order any more than her Padawan was.

He gave a shameful nod. "The teacher on the holo said that to cling to things or people was attachment. That they were one with the Force and a Jedi does not let grief linger. That the fear of losing people can lead to anger and anger to hatred. To the dark side. But -" Her Padawan took a deep breath, "but I can't imagine just letting them go. I gave them part of me! Not- not so that I could keep them with me but so that they would know that I will always remember them. How could I dishonor that by letting them go? How could anyone feel so little as to not honor them? To not remember their name?" 

Depa tugged her Padawan to the bare space in front of her. Dignity and independence had no place where skin needed to touch and know that they were not alone. She wanted to see his face, but more than that he needed to know that she understood, better than perhaps he could realize. “What I am about to tell you could and has been deemed heresy by the Council on more than one occasion. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Master.” Caleb whispered, his eyes blown wide.

“Not everyone agrees with the code, or with how the Jedi Council on Coruscant decides the code should be lived. What is important as we argue and fight with ourselves about the code we live by – is that we remember, what separates us from the Sith isn’t the use of the light side of the force. It’s the sanctity of sentient life.” Depa pulled him into a tight embrace, “So long as we remember that everyone has the right to a life built from their own choices, then what does it matter? Jedi are first and foremost a bulwark against darkness and evil in the galaxy. To do that we must have something worth fighting for,” she pressed her hand against his chest, “in here.”

That was right. The sanctity of sentient life. Not following the orders of the Senate. Not obeying the whims of beings who had forgotten the feeling of dirt on their feet and the joy of running because there was no reason not to. Or the laughter that bubbles up when you had thought for sure that death was around the corner - only to be saved in the eleventh hour.

The Senate had a bad habit of only listening to those planets with influence, of those societies with power. How many times had Depa and her troops landed on a planet destitute and poor in health and nutrition, only to find out the problem wasn’t from war but politics? The Jedi were sent where the Senate wanted them, but the Senate had not sworn oaths. Why should they decide which direction the Jedi went?

That grand governing body had declared the troops of Kamino were good enough for cannon fodder but not for citizenship. Everyone deserved the right to live and try to make their own decisions in life. To not be slaves to politics, to debt, to overseers, or to chips in their brains. Depa had sworn oaths on it. Which meant she had to do something.

“Master?” Caleb worried, she had been silent for several long minutes.

“Master Plo has reached out to myself and several others about concerns he believes the Force has laid on his heart about the troopers’ right to life.” She finally said.

“That’s attachment though, right?” He worried his lip, wide eyes staring up into hers.

“Yes,” Depa said, tugging her padawan tighter in her arms. “The Council would tell Master Plo that he is letting the attachment he feels to the troopers shade his perception of the Force. But what if the Force is giving him the warning to do something to prevent it?”

“What is he going to do?”

“He has suggested that at the end of the war, if we cannot get the Order or the Senate to listen, we might- we might leave the Order. So that we can take care of our Vod’e.” She wasn’t looking at her Padawan but she felt his grip tighten in her tunics.

“You won’t leave me, right?” Moisture gathered in his eyes and fear trembled in the force, “Master Depa, I don’t want to leave you.”

“Oh, shh, Caleb.” She cuddled him back up into her arms, shushing his hitched breathing. “I promise Padawan, that so long as you want to you may follow me anywhere. Well,” she amended, “perhaps not to the ‘fresher.”

Caleb choked and coughed as sobs turned to laughter. “We’re going to do what we think is right. To preserve sentient life, right, Master? To protect our Vod’e.”

“Right.” Now was the harder part. The Jedi Master pet her padawan into letting her go and rolled to her feet, “I need to talk to Grey. He has the right to know, all the men do.”

Depa had chosen to do something rather reckless. Pulling all but the men on essential services, meeting them in the large open cargo bay that served as the gym her Troopers needed. Quick like a flexi-wrap. She held up the tube with the micro-sized data chip inside. “This is inside each and every one of you.”

“What is it?” Pipes asked raising a gauntlet to catch the tube. Raising it to the light, trying to see inside. The immensely dangerous device was near about the size of the tip of a stylus and made of a clear-ish material. Seeing it inside the tube required patience and a trick of the light.

“It’s a nanochip. While those assisting with this can’t get into it, most agreed that it’s the kind that – that slavers use to keep track of sentient product.” She resisted the urge to wring her hands. She breathed in the peace of the Force and breathed out her anxiety, releasing it into the Force. No way was she going to allow fear to second-guess her decisions.

“That’s usually attached to explosives, right?” Grey clarified as he stole the chip from his medic. “We don’t have explosives inside us.”

“No, you don’t.”

“There’s no locator in it either.” Gears tapped at the screen of his scanner. “Who found out? How do you know we all have it?”

"Logic is the only recourse here," Depa admitted, perhaps not the most solid source of evidence, but her men had trusted her on less. Though the stakes might never have been so high. “General Kenobi found it in one of his men, saved at the eleventh hour from a serious head wound. The medbot thought it was a piece of shrapnel. He can’t get into it. Several others have tried. We’ve sent one out to a trusted third-party; analysis hasn’t come back yet.”

“Has Master Ti asked the Kamino?” Grey asked, though the frown on his face and the focus he sent their medic meant that he was just following the logic. He wasn’t doubting the Jedi.

“Hmm, she has.” Depa nodded. "The last vid-call I received, about twenty-four hours ago, still said the Kamino refused to answer the question. Simply refused to acknowledge she asked it.”

“But these are in us.” Grey confirmed, “And we don’t know what they do.”

“Well,” Gears said climbing to his feet, “I don’t know about you Vod. But this seems like an easy choice. Let’s get them out. ASAP.”

“It’s not that simple.” Pipes said, tapping at his screen. “The entire unit would be down for days – maybe weeks if we don’t have the bacta – and, no offense General, but I get the feeling the High Council can’t know what we’re doing.”

“General?!” Grey shot his Jedi a concerned look. Most of the Vod were surprised, but Depa had promised that she would never lie to them. Never make them empty promises. 

“No, you’re right. I’m not leaving you, not before the end of the war. Not by choice.” She took a deep breath. “There has been some concerning talk on the Council, nothing concrete, nothing certain – just opinions being voiced that make me-” she looked down, realizing her hands were twisting in her sleeves, she took another breath - inhale peace, exhale anxiety. “It makes me wonder if the Jedi Order is going in a direction that I can follow.”

The cargo hold burst into noise. 250 rowdy men making their surprise and support very clear. Caleb wiggled his fingers into her hand and squeezed.

“Hey!” Grey broke the noise with a sharp whistle. “I think I can say for all of us that whatever you choose, General, we’ll be right there with you. Followed you into Haran this far.” He gave a nasty smirk, “Leaving the Army? Leaving the Jedi – eventually - that’s nothing.”

There was a low-level murmur of assent before Pipes rose from his seat.

“Only one thing left, then.” He gestures the company’s other two medics. “Let’s see if we can’t figure out a plan to get these chips out.”

The meeting broke up, there wasn’t a solution, not yet, but at least everyone was on the same page. As the Vod’e filed out, each made sure to gently brush past their general. Offering words of comfort and supportive touch as they went. It didn’t need to be said - a secret from the council, to protect their general? Their lips might as well be glued shut.

Grey was the last one left with Depa and Caleb, taking his time to make sure that each of the other men got their time and attention from the woman offering them the world. He leaned against the bulkhead facing her.

“Depa,” he took a chance running the backs of his fingers across her cheek. “Ner Jetii. No matter what happens next, you’ll always have me. To whatever end.”

“To whatever end.” Depa’s smile was a weak trembling thing, full of stress and worry, but she leaned into the caress and offered it all up to her Commander.

-

"I've said it before, and I'll say it again. The galaxy is a lesser place for you not being a politician." Bail set down his teacup. Took a moment to just observe the elegant man across from him and shook his head, "I can only imagine the damage you could do in the Senate for your own agenda."

“I have used my skills for the benefit of the Order many times." Obi-Wan gave a self-deprecating smile. "Well, perhaps now is the time you can find out." 

"What do you mean? You're leaving the Order?" Bail near froze in his seat, reminding himself to breathe. It may not be what it sounded like. "Alderaan - my Queen and I - would be happy to help you find your feet."

The Alderaan Senator nearly quivered at the thought. His dear friend restrained only by his own sense and perhaps the wise advice of he and his lady wife - to see Obi-Wan freed from the burden of the uncomfortable weight of the vows of the Jedi Order. Bail couldn’t imagine it, but he couldn’t wait either.

"I thank you for the support, old friend. But that’s not quite where my plan is going." Obi-Wan took a deep breath. "I share this in the strictest confidence. Because I call you a friend - and because I need help - but there are several of us who are considering splitting from the Order."

"Several?" The Senator was suddenly happy he'd already put his cup down. It was one thing for a single man to leave the weight of the Order’s binds. Especially when that man was his friend. It was something entirely different to realize that the bulwark of the Republic’s defense might be shattering under the pressure of the war.

Obi-Wan shrugged, the names weren't his secret to reveal, not yet. "We aren't happy with the direction the Order is going. Endorsing the use of enslaved soldiers. Complicit in the creation of more clones. Diverting funds and energy from humanitarian aid to pushing forward the frontline. Supporting the Chancellor’s call for more ‘emergency’ powers. This isn’t an emergency any longer, Bail. It’s a state of being."

"If you leave - if the Order falls before the war is over," Bail shook his head, "it would be terrible. Many, many, lives lost to the encroaching darkness of the Separatists."

“That’s the thing, Bail.” The Jedi turned to look at his friend, “Those of us who want to leave, we’re not sure there is an ‘encroaching darkness’. What do the Separatists gain by taking planets who don’t want anything to do with them? Who don’t support the war? How many representatives from rational logical pacifistic societies are rallying for the levying of retribution taxes from the planets ‘liberated’ from the Separatists? Who does this war really benefit? Because I’m not sure even the enemy knows why they’re in this.”

“That’s a wretched thought Obi-Wan.” Bail poured fresh tea for himself and his friend. The fine porcelain trembling in his hands.

"I know. We're not- I'm not-" He paused, turning his teacup in his hands. "We have no intention of splitting before the end of the war, or at least some type of stable resolution is found. But Bail," He looked away from his friend, staring out at the skyscape of Coruscant's highest levels. "I've spent the last three years at war and I'm tired. I'm tired of blood on my hands and in my nightmares. I'm tired of waking up at the slightest foreign noise. I'm tired of saying a litany of names that keeps growing. I'm tired of the dark, Bail, and the dawn keeps getting farther away."

"What do you need, Obi-Wan. How can I help?" The Senator reached out and covered one of the Jedi's hands. Pressing them between his and wrapping the tea-warm cozy over them, they were frigid.

"I need you to look into getting the clones rights as citizens of the Republic." Obi-Wan gave a wry grin. “Nothing impossible.”

Bail scoffed, “just ridiculously difficult then.”

“This is it,” Obi-Wan jerked his head toward the political arena the entire ecumenopolis was built around. “There is a darkness in the Senate - in the Republic - and this will be a good gauge as to how far gone the illness is. I can stand to be part of an organization I need to remind to do the right thing. But freedom won with the saber’s edge is always tinged with blood. I would like to see how much they’ll have to bleed before I leave.”

"I'll look into it.” Bail frowned but nodded. “There has to be some way to get their rights through. If not boldly than maybe sneakily? I'll talk to some people. But Obi-Wan, what do you need?"

"I need this to work.” Obi-Wan gave a twist of his lips that was more grimace than smile. “To believe that there's a future after this war. I need to dream of that future because without that I don't know what else I have to get me through this."

"Ok," Bail said, wrapping his friend in his arms. Promising to himself that he would make sure his friend saw the dawn at the end of this war. "Ok."

-

Jocasta Nu manned the information desk within the Jedi Archives, paging through incredibly delicate manuscripts, humming ever so lightly and tapping her foot as she made notes on her padd. She had been charged by their small conspiracy with writing the charter for a new Order; if such a thing was going to become necessary. Only the first draft of course. It was just as well though. She was safe in the archives, while most of her co-conspirators were off fighting a Sith-orchestrated war.

“What are you doing?” The Master of the Order asked, a scowl lining the creases of his face.

At their last little conspiracy meeting, Obi-Wan had brought up an interesting point about how long Mace Windu had been leading the Order. Perhaps he’d been leading it too long. Jocasta had to pause upon being confronted with the man himself. She wondered when he’d smiled last, she certainly didn’t recall it. Perhaps when Depa was still a padawan.

“If you must know,” the Librarian said, “I’m doing research on the Jedi Charter. It’s been years since the last analysis of it was done. I’m considering writing an essay. Was there something you needed Master Windu?”

The man continued to scowl and nothing noticeable changed about his posture. “Have you noticed anything funny about Plo's behavior?”

Oh, so that was where he was going. Jocasta felt a little guilty, but mostly she bit her lip to keep for laughing. “Funny? How do you mean? Master Koon is a male of good humor.”

Windu responded with a very dry look, “He's been - shifty. Strange. Not deviating from his patterns in a dangerous way, just noticeable. You and he often have refreshments after long meetings. I was wondering if he had confided in you.”

“I do not appreciate the insinuation that I would break the confidence of a friend, Master Windu.” Nu arched her brow, not impressed. “Otherwise, he’s what? Looking around corners and dodging between pillars? Humming old holo-thriller theme music?”

“No,” Windu said, and she’d thought his tone couldn’t get any drier. Didn’t even apologize for his prying. “He's dodging my comms. His men were due back in for light duty, but he just said that he'd had no casualties and his men wanted to press forward. He'd already agreed to a new plan by the time I caught up to him! There are adaptations to the clone's uniforms Ponds won't explain to me and I caught Plo hugging his troopers! Hugging them!”

Nu felt a little bad. The Jedi master sounded at the end of his rope. Plo’s behavior was a bit odd if you didn't happen to know that he'd met his breaking point in a confrontation with small vial with a miniscule datachip.

She bit her lip. Jocasta was at least honest with herself, she got a great deal of amusement out of the pious Master Windu’s predicament. Honestly, she couldn’t wait for the day when she could shove this in his face. She cleared her throat. “Do you want to request him to step down from the High Council? If you think he's violated the Rule of Attachment?”

It might move their schedule ahead. Then again it might not. Jocasta wasn’t too worried. The entire situation had been caused by the Council’s inability to adapt to the times and their knight’s needs. Odds were Windu would just -

“I can't honestly justify dismissing Plo when I haven't even spoken to Kenobi about his former Padawan's complete lack of discretion.” Windu frowned harder, “No, it’s better if we keep Plo on the council. Keep him in sight and continue to watch his behavior. He’s a wise and valuable member of our Order, but if he is having heretical beliefs it wouldn’t do to have him spread them to our vulnerable members.”

And sitting on it was exactly what Nu figured he would do. She kept a bland and impersonal expression on her face. There was irony to the Master of the Order’s statement that she wasn’t sure he would ever understand. Windu assumed that those most vulnerable to Plo’s opinions would be in the padawans and younger knights - like Skywalker whose affair with the Senator from Naboo was secret from absolutely no one. When, in actuality, he would face the strongest opposition from his tested masters. Because males and females like Obi-Wan and Depa were hitting their breaking point right there with Plo.

The war, the Senate, the Republic, Windu, everyone was asking more from those fragile ones, and they didn’t have more to give. 

“So, what then?” She raised a brow. “Do you have a plan? What if Plo isn’t breaking the Rule of Attachment - just being free with his affections?”

“I don't know.” He huffed, “I’d bet that he's up to something though. Freely offering affection is one thing, but dodging my holos, avoiding his duties on the Council, and disobeying orders from the Master of the Order are entirely different. Plo’s up to something, and I'm going to figure out what it is! I will!”

“I have every faith in you, Master Windu.” The Jedi Librarian responded promptly and without an ounce of impropriety. But her focus had already returned to the very old documents spread across her desk. Windu might well find out what they were up to before they were ready, but it didn’t change what they were doing. So that charter needed to be written. And soon.

-

The _Resolute_ had been stationed in a maintenance orbit around Coruscant for the past week, getting desperately needed repairs and upgrades done. The men who manned her were more than happy with the time for rest and relaxation. Their General had spent that time, in between dealing with some duties at the Senate and keeping up with his padawan, at the lovely and tender mercies of the Senator for Naboo. Now, however, playtime was over and by all accounts, the war was once more encroaching on civilization within the inner core of Republic space.

It was the job of the 301st and their Jedi to make sure that the Separatists bitterly regretted that move.

It didn’t stop Anakin Skywalker from missing his wife, though.

In a shuttle on the way to the ship, he allowed himself the luxury of leaning his head back against the view window and casting his mind back to the sensory memory he'd imprinted just hours ago in his beautiful senator's apartment. The sun had speared through the windows of her apartment off 300 Republica and cast a warm glow on the surroundings. It gave everything the softest feel, making him reluctant to return to the cold press of the ship and the bitter loneliness of space. The feel of her skin like silk against his and the taste of her on his lips was vivid. He could almost imagine he was still there.

The shuttle docked with a shock and he was jolted out of the pleasant daydream. Back to the grim realities of war. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of something odd. A passing trooper had a gold streak on his helmet. Just a single deliberate and intense swipe of color. It wasn’t honestly that different. While some troopers did have intricate designs on their armor or pictures of friends and found family, most defaulted to geometric patterns and designs. Which wasn’t to say that they were basic, not at all, the thought and talent that went into them could be quite exorbitant. All it meant though, was that the Trooper’s new streak wasn’t odd because of art, but because of color. The 501st's colors were blue, too light to be dark blue - something closer to a steel blue color. But Anakin didn't know all the men in his unit. Oh, he knew enough to know the names of bodies, but not backgrounds or quirks or favorites. Ahsoka did, which was fine and good for her, and Obi-Wan did, which was strange - Anakin didn’t even know when his master slept, let alone found the time to personally know all the men in his command, what with all the duties the High Council had placed on him. Anakin just figured that the turnover rate was a little high in his command to go getting personal with each of his men.

It wasn’t as high as some commands. Anakin had shuddered in horror at the news that Tarkin had lost three entire companies of troopers taking a Separatist base, but the 501st was a heavy combat unit with almost equal time spent in the air as on the ground. He'd burnt a fair amount of bodies on the funeral pyre.

Also, sometimes, in the dark of night after a bad battle, Anakin figured half the reason he didn’t let them get that close was that it’d hurt that much more when they died. He didn’t like that part of him, and he’d shut it up behind his walls with all the other monsters in his mind. Spent a lot of his waking time not thinking about it, and a lot of his nightmares dreaming about it. Finding bodies in scorched armor on the battlefield and unable to name the trooper.

The Jedi Knight shook his head and dislodged the morbid thoughts from his mind. It was more than likely that the trooper with the gold streak had transferred in from another unit. Rex took care of that type of logistics, and Anakin was awful at paperwork so he might not have seen the orders from high command. The gold streak could be in remembrance. Anakin shrugged as he continued to his quarters to drop his bag figuring that was the end of it, except, as he passed through the main corridors of the _Resolute_ the Jedi saw more and more troopers with the gold streak across the temple of their helmet. Now, Anakin might not have been the most sensitive and attuned Jedi Knight, or General for that matter, but he hadn't lost _that_ many men.

Some of those troopers were clones he knew! He frowned, grabbing a trooper by the arm as he passed by.

"Nice paint, Vod." Anakin gestured to the streak with a grin. "Looks new."

"Yes, sir." The trooper agreed. "Got it done just yesterday, lucky too. Paint ran out. Captain says we pro'lly won't get more in for weeks."

"Huh." The knight gave a quizzical look. "What’s it for?" He gave a barking laugh, "Everybody in the same fight?"

"Sir-"

"General Skywalker," Captain Rex said, rapidly approaching, "we're entering hyperspace to Corellia in ten minutes. Any last minute orders?"

"I slept through the briefing." Anakin admitted, only feeling a little shameful at the exasperated annoyance radiating from his Clone Commander.

"With your eyes open, sir?" Rex asked dryly.

"It's an acquired skill." He frowned at his Captain when the clone trooper dismissed the man the Jedi had held waiting. Trooper left quickly and Anakin had a thought that he should be upset, but honestly, between Obi-Wan and Rex, Anakin had been managed since he’d been given his own command. It was better not complaining; the other man did most of his paperwork. "Give it to me short."

"Separatist pirates on the Corellian hyper lane." Rex proffered the padd, the incidences laid out on the star map with a legend indicating levels of violence per incident, amount of credits lost, and frequency of attacks. It had Obi-Wan’s fingerprints all over it. 

"So, we're going to loop around Corellian's gravity well one way and General Kenobi's men will go in the opposite direction. And hopefully catch the Pirates in between?" Anakin nodded, “Sounds good. Obi-Wan write it?”

"Commander Cody, sir." The trooper said as they turned toward the ship's war room, and Anakin saw the flash of gold on his own Commander's helmet from where it rested tucked in his arm.

"Rex, Vod, what's with the gold streaks? You weren’t in any battle I wasn’t."

He couldn't tell at first, his mind already on other things. Possible avenues of attack, the spread of his company into squads for fighting, or the possibility of the violence not being pirates. But the pause was just a little too long. The silence just a little too much. It would be a first for the record books, Anakin figured, if Rex hesitated to tell his General what was going on. But at the Jedi's insistent look, the trooper gave a wry shrug and blushed a little - Anakin did not refute it, he stared. He hadn't even known Rex _could_ blush.

"It's just a fashion piece, sir. The 212th started it, sir. Catching on fast with all the troopers. Think I even saw it on Wolffe’s gear the other day."

"And you have it because….?"

Rex frowned, "I'm not an automaton, sir. I have friends -"

"You have, Cody, Rex." Anakin rolled his eyes, already walking forward again. "That not the same thing."

"The Shinies convinced me."

"Since when do you let a Shiny's opinion weigh so much?" Anakin snorted, and thoughtlessly said, "Their anger can't last too long. They rarely last long as it is."

He was just parroting what the Chancellor had said when he’d met and had lunch with the man. It might have been rude, but it was also unfortunately true.

Anakin never noticed the hard-eyed look that glossed his commander's face as the clone entered the room a prescribed two feet behind him. He never noticed the stiffened posture in the otherwise empty room and he never saw the hand clenched around the marked helmet. Anakin's vision was already narrow between the war and his wife. He tried to be a good Jedi, compassionate but without attachment. And he tried to be a good General, but he didn't really have much to spare for his men. Only minutes later, as the cruiser entered hyperspace, Anakin had already forgotten what they were talking about.

Rex hadn't.


	2. Part 2

The padd in his hands trembled. Dooku didn’t move from his prostrated kneel, not even in the room with his current apprentice and the man, rightly, still feared his wrath. Sidious had more than enough wrath to share.

"How many?"

"According to the spies we have within the Republic and the Army, the operation to remove the contingency orders is almost complete." Dooku's smooth tones didn't shake, but Sidious knew his cunning apprentice. The politician would not dare approach him with anything less than a report the man had verified himself. Not when the news was so bad. “Shaak Ti has even ensured that the Kaminoans remove the chips within the product still on the planet."

The entire army? How had they managed to hide this? The Grand Army of the Republic had millions of clones, but more than that it had thousands of free military staff. Natural-born sentients of a dozen species invested in the continuation of the Republic and suppression of the Separatist movement. He had hundreds of his own spies invested in the military. Nothing should be a surprise like this.

"Master, how shall I proceed?"

Sidious couldn't stand to hear that solicitous political tone. Couldn't stand to look up and see the carefully devoted face of his traitorous apprentice. Without a word, the Sith Lord closed the connection.

Oh, how Sidious was impatient for the day when the Chosen One replaced that repulsive Serennoan. Tyrannus might be an intelligent and curious creature, and Sidious had invested a great number of years grooming the former Jedi. He was necessary for the plans going forward. Just like everyone else he had wooed, charmed, threatened, and killed. The male's place as his apprentice in the Dark side of the Force was no guarantee of survival. After all, the time and energy invested was nothing compared to what the Sith Lord had spent on the Chosen One. It was worth it all to have the Savior of the Jedi, the Hero Without Fear, kneel willingly at his feet.

And now the plan lay in rubble.

No longer able to contain it, the old politician threw it and the crash of the padd meeting the wall sent Mas Amedda and his security team barreling into the room.

“Chancellor are you well?” The Captain in charge of his security asked hesitantly already inching back out the door. 

With yellow eyes and sharp teeth barely hidden by the shadows of the setting sun, Sidious gave the obligatory apology. Murmuring platitudes concerning the stress of his position and the small ways he could alleviate it. And made note that he may need a new head of security.

Perhaps a clone. There was something to be said for their interchangeability.

"Mas Amedda," Sidious stopped the Chagrian at the door, "call on Senator Amidala. See when she's available to meet me, at her earliest convenience. I have a project I’d like to involve her in."

“Very good, Chancellor.” Amedda said as he pulled the doors closed behind him. Once more safely encasing the Darth in a Force-nullification field.

Just because the original plan wasn't going to work, didn't mean that it couldn't be salvaged. Sidious grinned. The public would be so surprised to learn how much fear Knight Skywalker did feel. Hero Without Fear - what a joke. Anakin Skywalker was so full of fear and anger, Sidious wondered how the boy got up in the morning sometimes. Though it was a sign he was willing to take that the Chosen One would make a good apprentice. 

-

It didn’t take long to arrange a meeting between the Supreme Chancellor and the Senator of his home planet. Palpatine had kept up a very visual mentorship of the young woman on whom Skywalker’s fall rested. So it wasn’t long at all before Mas Amedda was ringing the discrete intercom on the Chancellor's desk.

"Senator Amidala is here, Chancellor."

Perfect timing. For the Sith Lord, everything else for this adapted plan was already in place. "Send her in."

As befitted her status as the Senator for Naboo, Padme Amidala was resplendent in silk the color of their shared home planet’s blue sky and a shifka headdress of gold and mother-of-pearl, every inch the gorgeous powerful female politician. A dangerous entity all on her own. Sidious couldn't wait to see her lying in pieces before her husband.

"Senator Amidala, I'm so pleased you could meet with me on such short notice!" He offered a wide smile and took her hand gently in his. Resisting the urge to break bones and imagining the sound of her screams.

The slightest wrinkle between her eyes smoothed out as a picture-perfect smile graces her lips. "Well, when the Chancellor of the Galactic Republic requests a meeting at my earliest convenience, you don't make them wait! How rude would that be?"

The darksider gave a politic chuckle and directed her to the informal seating in front of the office's gorgeous view of Republica Street.

"Please come sit, I have a wonderful pot of Smhir Sapir to share with you."

"Oh," A pleased smile makes its way to the woman's eyes. "I haven't had Sapir from the Smhir farm since Kabal Smhir was running for Queen."

"A pity the woman didn't win," the Chancellor gave a sudden sheepish grin. "Though, of course, the Naberrie Dynasty has done great works for our planet."

The Naberrie Senator grinned, "It has been a wonderful run."

The Sith watched with avid eyes as the delicate teacup was raised to painted lips. "Your term is almost up; will you campaign for another term?"

"Perhaps not now. There are a few more years to my term, but even with the war going I would like to step down for a small time." Sidious had to applaud the woman, if he hadn't known she was pregnant he never would have guessed. "A quick break. Perhaps a single term and then back into politics." She leaned forward to share a confidence. "Queen Saze' has spoken about increasing the Nabooian presence in Coruscant to a Senator and an Ambassador. Perhaps I will convince her such a position should be left in Naberrie hands."

"I'm sure." He gave noncommittal hum. Peering closely at what little flesh was available. "You look quite flushed, my dear. Are you feeling well?"

"Oh, it's nothing, Chancellor." She waved off his illusionary concern. "It has simply been a busy day. I often find that Coruscant is just hot enough to be uncomfortable in these thick dresses and court styles." She flushed a fetching pink. "I was out at a lower level diner this morning -"

"Is that quite safe?" The Chancellor frowned. “Coruscant can be quite rough. As much as we are the capital of the Republic, a shining beacon, even we have our dark underside.”

"Oh, I was as safe as could be. It was a celebration of Vod'e culture.” There was that word again. Like anything manufactured for war and the rise of the darkside had any right to its own existence. The clones were tools, not people. “There were so many troopers and Jedi at the diner I think it will take weeks from the criminal element to crawl back in." Her pleasant and politic smile turned down a bit as she noticed his stiff and uncomfortable look. "Honestly, Chancellor, I was surprised not to see you there. As such a close ally to the Jedi Order ..."

"Ah," Sidious made an apologetic moue. Trying not let the furious temper boiling inside him free. Why wasn't the damn tea working?! "There are so many worthy causes. As much as I would like to go to all of them, there is simply not enough hours in the day."

"Of course, I under-"

Ah, there it was. The woman wavered in her seat, the attractive flush paled violently as her pupils dilated. Her hand went to her hidden belly as a grimace stole over her face. Ah, he'd forgotten about that. ‘Not to be used on pregnant women, may cause miscarriage’ this tea. Oh well.

It wasn't like _he_ cared about whether Skywalker's brats lived or died. Like the clones and his persona as Chancellor Palpatine, these brats of Skywalker’s are just a means to an end. After all, they didn’t make billions in the holo industry every year because the lengths progenitors would go to, to protect their offspring wasn’t thrilling.

"Mas Amedda," Sidious called out as he carefully lifted the heavy woman from the cushioned seat. "Call for the car, will you? We're going out the window."

The Sith Lord dropped the Nabooian Senator in the cramped back of the vehicle. Leaving four dead security officers and one dead assistant in the offices behind as the comm unit buzzed to life. The problem that Sidious hadn't really considered with exiting via the window, was that as an emergency exit for the Chancellor of the Galactic Republic it automatically called for emergency assistance.

"Chancellor Palpatine, this is CT 2871 with Senate Security. Are you alright? Can you identify the danger?"

Chancellor Palpatine might have been able to convince them it was simply urgent business, but the Sith Lord had been betting on the chips to just tell them to go away. Sidious didn't have time to deal with this refuse. And he was fresh out of patience. He’d been waiting decades for the end of the Jedi. He refused to wait a minute longer to hide what he was.

“Order 73!” The Darth barked out, jerking his aircar out of its lane he tried to get away from his escort. His hands slipped. The vehicle swerved as those following him took defensive formations. Other speeders were dropping down into a less aggressive formation on a lower lane.

"This is CC-11284 of Coruscant Air-Space Defense. Fury Company. Pilot -Identify yourself, or we will have no choice but to shoot you down."

Sidious grabbed up the comm unit growling out, again, "CC-11284, Order 73."

"Pilot, I am a trooper in the CASD. I do not follow Orders from unidentified aircraft." The leading aircar tipped its wings. "There is a space in landing zone-"

Impatient with the inconvenience of free clones, the Sith Lord reached out and strangled the pilot. It was child's play; he could see the clone pilot all he had to do was reach out and crush its flimsy arrogant little neck.

The leading pilot jerked his ship up and away from the civilian drivers. Knocking into several of the other ships running escort. He didn’t bother looking back to see the damage. His passenger groaned in the back. Sidious was running out of time. He really didn't have time for all of this.

"Palpatine?" Senator Amidala gasps a little. "What's going on? I don't-"

It was a disgusting noise retching, and the smell was worse, but they'd made it to the bay he needed.

"Yes, yes, I'm sure you feel absolutely disgusting." He climbed out of the cockpit and lifted the woman just far enough with the force that falling onto the plasti-crete floor hurt but didn't leave more than bruises. "It's your own fault though, sleeping with a Jedi." He smirked, "Naughty, naughty Senator."

She stared at the lightsaber in his hand. "You're the Sith?"

"Yes, yes. Shocking, I know." His pleasant smile screwed up into something ugly as he pulled her near his face. "You'd never even know. The plan was perfect! All I had to do was -"

He gasped, her foot went straight into a nerve cluster that he might not have used much in these past decades; but even Sidious was still attached to his manhood. Her shoes were weapons themselves.

\---

Padme couldn't catch her breath. Her vision was swimming and she could barely make out patches of light. Her belly was heavy, and there was something wrong with her baby - she could feel it - it threw off her already compromised balance.

Behind her, the Sith Lord was regaining his equilibrium and she only had a handful of minutes to get as far as she could.

"Senator Amidala," A familiar voice, a familiar shape. "Are you alright? The Chancellor, is he alright?"

"Sith!" She grappled with the painted white armor, pushing her weight against the clone. "Jedi! Call - Jedi!"

Thankfully, for her and for them, no clone survived Kamino stupid. Willing to pretend to be stupid, sure. But actively dull and dumb - no.

"Comms! Call the Temple!" The clone she'd run into, the commanding officer it sounded like. "Call for backup! Tombs shut down the auto-exit, reroute the all traffic by three blocks. Tanks, Caesar, I want a barricade! We shoot anything that moves! And I need a Medic!"

Padme let herself be lifted, she might be heavy, but troopers could handle the weight. Which was good because her legs didn't seem to be up to standing.

"Just try to breathe normally, Ser." The Medic said, "we've got reinforcements and a healer team from the temple coming. We're just holding the line."

Padme closed her eyes, "This normal? Or crazy?"

"Eh, not normal." The medic admitted, "but Coruscant Guard is a lot more exciting than most realize. We work with both Temple Justice teams and Capital Security. There are a Haran more explosions then get reported on the holovid. Our Company probably has more urban-fighting experience than any company except the 212th."

"Not the 501st?" She smiled.

"Nah," The Trooper shook his head, "You'd think they would, right? But the 501st is like the 105 or the 326th. It's specialized aerial pursuit." He shrugged. "Us and the 212th, we pursue on foot. We go through a lot of boots."

Padme snorted.

"Padme!" The was a frighteningly familiar shout. "Oh Force, are you okay?"

"Oh, Ani!" And that was it, she was done. Bursting into tears with a medical oxygen mask on and hooked up to flushing fluids was not her proudest moment. "It's awful! The Chancellor, he's the Sith Lord!"

"I'm sure that accusation will have some very nasty evidence to back it up," Master Kenobi said, a frown creasing his face. "But I'm willing to believe you. Whoever took you left several bodies in the Chancellor’s office, so It's a simple sort of thing to disprove really. Kale, grab me the horn, please?"

"Why would he wait?" Padme asked, trying to stay still for the Jedi Healer. "Why didn’t he attack while we were waiting? Or before I got out?"

"Good question," Kenobi said, reaching for the blowhorn. "Chancellor Palpatine! Oh, Chancellor Palpatine! Come out, come out, where ever you are!"

A clone trooper with orange paint groaned. 

Anakin's padawan, Ahsoka, snorted, "Yeah, giving Master Obi the horn probably wasn't such a great idea."

"Senator Amidala?" The Jedi Healer touched her shoulder briefly, it brought Padme's attention back to her own body. Her aching bruised body. "Do you have a personal doctor? You need to see a medical professional immediately before the fetuses abort."

"Fetuses?!"

"Abort?!"

Padme waved a hand at the friends - and secret family - ringed around her, to pay attention to the healer. "What did he do to me?"

"It wasn't likely on purpose, but the sedative he gave you has abortive side effects." The Jedi Healer was grabbing a passing clone. "If you don't see help soon the damage could be irreversible."

"Ani-"

"No," Anakin shook his head, "Go, get help. I need to stay."

Padme swallowed, scared of facing this without her husband at her side.

"I could go with her, Skyguy." Ahsoka offered the Senator a smile. "After all, we don't know who else might be involved."

Anakin paled and Padme bit her lip. Ahsoka could have put that a different way. "Right, Ahsoka go with Padme, call for an escort from Rex for the hospital. I'll see you both soon."

"Of course, Skyguy."

A fight had already broken out by the time the air ambulance was lifting off. She just caught the edge of some pretty inflammatory words in Obi-Wan’s distinctive accent, as well as the bright flash of something exploding before the remnants of the sedative pulled her under again.

Traditional medical professionals eventually gave Padme a nasty combination of flushing drugs and chemical neutralizers. She spent the majority of the evening voiding the contents of her stomach as Ahsoka held her hair and Dorme kept watch on the news. She knew something went wrong because she woke at one point to a frown on Ahsoka's expressive face and a tightening around Dorme's eyes.

"What happened?"

"Nothing to concern-"

"My mind will go to worse case scenarios!" Padme scowled at her handmaiden. "Is it my parents? The Queen? Did Palpatine get away?" She swallowed dryly, her sudden light-hearted argument now a confession as the atmosphere in the room plummeted. "Did Anakin -?"

Ahsoka made sure the pregnant woman was comfortable on the medical bed before the Togruta took a deep breath, "Master Skywalker is in Temple Justice Custody. They didn’t say anything about what he was charged with or how long he might be there; just that I am to report to Master Koon when relieved of guard duty."

Padme took a deep breath, "Dorme-"

"I already have the lawyers looking into it." Dorme assured, "The only problem is that the Jedi can charge others among their Order for misbehavior and lay their own punishments. We might not be able to help."

"No, we can help." Padme grabbed for her padd. "I'm more than willing to drag this before the Senate and into the public sphere if they can't be reasonable." Trying to soften her scowl in the face of Ahsoka's pale coloring, Padme offered, "Anakin will be okay, Ahsoka, and you’re tough. You'll land on your feet. I know it."

-

"Well, this could have gone better." Kit Fitso handed the Judicial padd to Plo Koon as he passed the Kel Dor to take his seat. "Senator Amidala is threatening to file against us. For unlawful imprisonment of Knight Skywalker."

"What did you tell her?" Windu asked as the High Council came together from their break.

Fitso shrugged, "Just that we were examining all the issues involved and at this point in time, the issue was neither legal nor the business of anyone outside the Order."

"Perhaps not the most politic." Koon frowned. His forehead ridges always made the oddest shapes. 

The Master of the Order groaned and in the privacy of this small and elite collection of colleagues, he let his head hit the back of his chair. "Amidala isn't going to let this go. Do we really want to drag this in front of the public?"

"Is there something to drag?" Obi-Wan Kenobi spoke for almost the first time that day. Many of his peers had attempted to give advice concerning the Fall of his former Padawan but all had simply received a tight smile for their efforts.

"What do you mean?" Windu asked.

Obi-Wan laid out the facts. "We have footage from the office of the Chancellor, that he requested a meeting with Senator Amidala and she never left his office. We have documentation from Capital Security that the Chancellor's emergency exit was used, and that Capital Security requested that Coruscant Space-Arial Defense check on it. Then we have security footage and audio recordings that two different troopers reached out to ascertain what was happening within the speeder that was -presumptively- carrying both Senator Amidala and Supreme Chancellor Palpatine. One trooper is dead from injuries clearly obtained through the Force and another is critically injured from the shuttle crash.

"We have the testimony of Unit 9 from the Coruscant Guard, that they approached the location of the speeder, and retrieved Senator Amidala before pulling out. We have Senator Amidala's testimony that the Chancellor admitted to being the Sith Lord. We have the testimony of four Jedi and three companies of troopers that heard the Chancellor refer to himself as Sith and witnessed the use of darkside Force techniques.

"If it were any other Jedi who'd fallen in the course of taking down the Sith Lord we'd be congratulating them and sending them to a mindhealer." Obi-Wan spread his hands to offer the facts to his fellow councilors. "What makes Skywalker's case different?"

"I do not believe it has to be." Madam Nu said. "Send him to the mindhealers, and eventually to the Council of Reconciliation. As far as I can tell we followed all protocols and procedures we should have. Palpatine was too dangerous to let live. We do not know where this line of corruption ends. It is very possible that even with all the evidence that we would not have been able to hold the Sith."

"Has anyone spoke with Skywalker?" Fitso asked, "Is he feeling remorse?"

Obi-Wan sighed, "I spoke to him earlier, and remorse was not exactly an emotion I would identify in him."

"Why? What is he saying?" 

"He's lost in the throes of First Contact." Obi-Wan hesitated and gave a small shrug, "maybe."

"Maybe?" Windu leaned forward to properly see the youngest Master on the Council, who slouched in his seat. Perhaps hiding from the stares of his peers, or perhaps simply too exhausted to sit straight as always. "What do you mean, maybe?"

"As you know, Captain Rex was the one who caught Anakin in the back with a stunning shot after the Chanc- Palpatine was dealt with."

"Indeed," Master Koon nodded bring his talons together in front of him with a click in the quiet room. "We will have to remember Captain Rex for his quick thought and fast action." 

"Well, Captain Rex made a comment that made me think that Anakin wasn't so much in the throes of First Contact with the dark side so much as he had given in - again." Obi-Wan didn't look up for the reactions of his lauded company. "I'm concerned that this is not the first time Anakin has fallen. It won't be easy to climb out of that dark pit if he has in fact fallen again."

"Regardless," Fitso said into the quiet of the Council chambers. "He needs help. At the moment, we can make a valid argument that Skywalker is ill, physically and psychologically, and that the Jedi Council is one of the few organizations prepared to deal with this type of illness. If Senator Amidala takes this before the Senate, the court will side in our favor."

"For now," Windu remarked lowly, "After he's back on his feet and coherent and we're still detaining him when the Senator pulls us before the Senate, what then?"

"We won't be able to detain him," Obi-Wan finally admitted. "Anakin acted as the Jedi General on the ground, backed up by two units and four other Jedi generals. There's nothing to detain him on. Nothing to charge him with."

"He killed people." Eeth Koth scowled. "He drew on the dark side!"

"It is not, in actuality a crime to use the dark side of the force." Master Koon points out. "Not according to Republic law. Now, there are near a million laws that a dark side user would break - eventually - as their practice grows deeper. But actually touching the dark side isn't a crime. Knight Skywalker was only detained because he attempted to go after his own troops."

"He had a psychotic episode." Saesiin Tiin said baldly. The Iktotchi male shook his head. "He's not safe to put back in the field."

"No," Master Koon dipped his head in admittance. "He's not safe in the field any longer. But Knight Vos is on the trail of Ventress even as we speak. Knight Secura is tracking Dooku, and an elite unit of Troopers went in after Grievous. The Separatist Movement is floundering; if we could put some pressure on the Senate that leaving the Republic is not a crime - that we should only act if the remaining body is invaded. Perhaps we could wrap this war up without any further loss of life."

Yoda frowned from where he sat in the outer edge of the crescent-shaped ring of chairs. "Damage we could do, if retreat from the war too fast, the Republic does."

"But further damage should also be mitigated." Kit Fitso opposed. "I have found that regardless of the intentions of any general, just having a unit of the army set down on a planet can cause damage to a locale."

"Such risks should not be taken." Yoda closed his eyes. "Fett Clones, too inexperienced, too undisciplined, know better their Jedi General should, then to give them so much free reign."

Kit Fisto's tentacles failed to so much as twitch they were so tense. Master Koon was decidedly placid in appearance, and Obi-Wan had to close his own eyes and use rudimentary force techniques to battle the suddenly oppressive atmosphere of the council chambers. Yoda had chosen to remain in the Temple during the war, as had Mace, and while none of the Council regretted it, it had created something of a divide within the High Council, between those Jedi Masters who had taken their companies to battle on the field and those who had not. 

"I must disagree, Master Yoda." It was Nu, of all people who voiced the dissent. "We do not claim that our younglings are adults until they have completed, on average, twenty years of training. Statistically, the oldest and most prepared of the Troopers are barely aged thirteen years. We would not put our own younglings that age on the battlefield, why do we expect different behavior from the troopers?"

Master Windu scowled at the aged Madam of the Archives. "We do not expect a Mirialan to age at the same rate as a Wookie or a Human. The Troopers age faster, it would be a disservice to hold them back."

"Indeed?" Madam Nu pined the Master of the Order with a dissatisfied look. "So, the troopers that die by the hundreds on our battlefields, aged barely seven years old, they are adult enough to go to war?"

Windu visibly bit his lip and refused to answer the question that hung in the air. There was no good answer. Obi-Wan slouched, pressing his fingers to his lips to hide the insidious smile pushing the edges of his lips up. It was only by the Force that the two Council members close enough to see the laughter dancing in his eyes were the ones he was in collusion with.

“We will have to see what Skywalker wants to do.” Kit rubbed at his forehead. “If what the Council thinks is true - that he is in a relationship with the Senator from Naboo - well, he won’t be the only one leaving the Order after the War.”

“Leave?” Squawked the Grandmaster of the Order. “Destroy the Order this could!”

“Perhaps destroy the Order it should,” Obi-Wan muttered discretely to his own conspirators. Receiving a sharp look from Windu as the man’s bat-keen ears picked up the bare edges of Obi-Wan’s complaint.

“Let’s break for the day,” Windu finally decided, “Nothing much to do about any of this until Skywalker recovers.”

-

Cody sat next to his closest brother and knew that Rex wore the Jaige eyes for a damn good reason. “There’s no easy answer to that, Vod. Sharing personal information about your general, knowing that it could hurt his position with them-”

“I know.” The brothers sat in their thermal regulating blacks, their backs to the half wall that separated the hall with General Skywalker’s healing rooms from the courtyard garden of Sweet Dreams. The night-blooming garden was unique and nothing on Kamino could come close to the riot of glow in the dark colors that bared their blossoms in the dead of night. It was a favorite among all the Vod’e. It had been a pleasant surprise to realize that General Skywalker’s new room was so very close by. It made standing guard over the 501st General a much more enjoyable time.

It wasn’t necessary, the Jedi Temple was only second in safety precautions to the Senate building but they were on watch because they didn’t know what else to do with themselves. They were soldiers staring at the end of the war, just getting over the shock of Palpatine’s betrayal, and now contemplating betraying one of their generals. It was hard stuff and they rewarded themselves by facing the garden instead of the hall.

“I tell the council and I betray my General. I keep his secrets and he could end up hurting someone else. Definitely my Commander and your General, probably the Company. Maybe the Senator.” Rex sighed, “Maybe even himself.”

Cody offered his Vod the bottle of hot cider they were sharing. “I can’t make this decision for you. I don’t have the information you do.”

“Please,” The Commander of the 501st scoffed. “Like you don’t hear everything in the command before it even happens. Wolffe still laughs himself sick over the time you re-arranged a baby general’s battle plan from halfway across the known galaxy.”

“He was going to get his troopers and himself killed.” Cody quirked an eyebrow, “The difference is evidence.” He shrugged, “And loyalty. General Skywalker has hurt my General far too many times for me to feel all that kindly towards him. But he’s _your_ Jetii.”

“Not a particularly good General.” Rex took a swallow of cider. “Not a particularly good Jetii, for that matter.”

“Sorry I couldn’t be much help, brother.” The High Marshall offered with a grimace. “This isn’t a call I can make for you.”

“Nah,” Rex finally said, thumbing the comm number that most of the clones had, regardless of whether they’d ever met the General. Buir was always willing to help. “I knew what I was going to do from the get-go. Just hadn’t figured out how I was going to do it.”

"Plo Koon." Came the sleep-roughened voice over the comm.

“General Koon, this is Captain Rex of the 501st.” Rex tightly squeezed his eyes shut before blinking them open. “I have some information that I believe is pivotal for your operations.”

“Indeed?” The Kel Dorian Master didn’t sound upset to be woken in the middle of the night. And nothing the two Fett clones could hear in his voice indicated that he wasn’t going to treat the information seriously. “Then perhaps -”

Before he could finish with his suggestion Rex had to red-light the comm and mute the connection. Cody had stiffened, head turned away from his brother and hand fingering the straps of his weapon. There was someone in the hall where no one except they were supposed to be. Priming their weapons and squatting behind the half-wall, the two brothers tried to get a better look at who was in the hall.

Two small figures, with human-standard silhouettes dressed in black, had stopped in front of General Skywalker’s temporary quarters. They seemed to be conferring before the door, the door that had been locked by Master Healer Vokara Che for everyone’s safety, including Skywalker’s, opened to show the General back-lit.

“Anakin!” One figure whipped off the concealing hood to reveal the Senator from Naboo’s beautiful face. “Love! Oh, how I’ve missed you!”

And General Skywalker, in reclusion because of the volatile nature of his emotions, grabbed the politician by her arms and laid a passionate kiss upon her lips. “Padme, you’ve never looked more like an angel.”

“Dorme,” Padme gasped, not looking away from the man’s captivating gaze. “How long until the next patrol passes?”

“30 mins if we’re staying, 15 if we’re all trying to get out.” Dorme shook her head free of the confining hood. “Not long.”

“Long enough,” Cody said, rising from the crouch behind the half-wall. Turn a blind eye to a harmless relationship? Sure, it was only his problem if it interfered with their duties. Allow a pair of intruders to release someone being held for their own health and benefit? No. “Because no one is going anywhere.”

Rex had settled back, flicking the comm into receiving mode to update Master Koon, and probably request some backup. Cody kept his weapon and his attention locked on the three natural-born across the hall.

Skywalker’s eyes lit with an unholy glow as his hand slowly rose.

“Really?” Cody gave the Jedi his best ‘Shiny, you best think through that shit again’ look. “You’re here for your own damn good and you’re about to display such sterling good sense as to attack a trooper in the Temple and run away with two unauthorized intruders. Great way to show your commanders that your back on even footing.”

“’Your own good’?” The Senator gripped the tabards of the Jedi tight. “What does he mean, Anakin? Are you here willingly? What’s wrong?”

“No, I don’t want to be here.” The Jedi growled as a whole group of troopers and Jedi rounded the corner into sight.

“As much as anyone ill enough to be in the hospital wants to be there.” Master Obi-Wan Kenobi said as he came to a stop near both groups, but without obstructing the sight of the clones. “Yet, just as serious and necessary.”

“You’re hurt, Anakin?!” Padme spun, her hands feeling up the torso of the young knight pressed against her. Her eyes roving for signs of blood or bruising, but she could spot nothing out of place. “Did that sleemo hurt you? I should-”

“Palpatine’s dead, Padme.” Dorme said dryly, rolling her eyes in the amassed Jedi’s presence. “ _Knight Skywalker_ killed him. I really don’t think we can do much more damage than a lightsaber through the heart.”

“You’d be surprised,” Rex muttered as Anakin tried, fairly futility, to calm the powerful senator.

“I’m fine, Padme.” Anakin captured her hands laying the softest of kisses on her palms. “Palpatine was strong in the force, but he wasn’t stronger than me.”

“Then why are you still here?!”

"Senator Amidala," Obi-Wan stepped forward, "I understand that Anakin is a great friend of yours, but the reason for his seclusion is personal and very intimate. Not something that most would offer to even their closest friends."

“He’s my husband!” The Senator lashed out. There was a murmur from the crowded hall, what with Master Jedi and Healers, troopers and intruders watching the conflict. Nothing hid the tremble in General Kenobi’s form from his Commander. Cody saw the way the redhead, sun-freckled from fighting under the stars of a thousand planets, paled, stiffened, and stepped back.

“I see.”

Cody heard the crack in his General’s voice; Padme and Anakin must have noticed as well because even as Obi-Wan stepped back away from their personal space the husband and wife reached out as though to stop him.

“Obi-Wan!”

The bravest man either trooper knew turned away from his student, a knight in his own right, and addressed Plo Koon, who had arrived not too soon after Obi-Wan himself had. Cody could see how his general’s hands were clasped together tightly in to stop the trembling.

“Master Koon, I would be most obliged if you could … handle this.”

“Obi-Wan!” Skywalker shouldered past the two Nabooian women, his shoulders tight and a nasty light already lit up his eyes from the inside. "Don't you dare turn your back on me! After everything, I've put up with! You-"

Several of the watching parties noticed the crackle of unnatural lightning at the same time. Plo Koon reached out a hand to force grab Obi-Wan from the directed path. The two women safely behind the fallen Jedi gasped. The troopers moved; Cody went low as Rex went high. And Anakin Skywalker slammed into the stone floor with a groan and an oath.

The Force had given some strange and powerful gifts to the chosen few who could manipulate it. Nearly to a one they were unprepared for a sudden brute force attack, though. Especially from people they considered allies.

Normally Rex and Cody were more than happy to be among the few that saw the other side of their Jetii’s placid masks. Tonight, they figured it was for Skywalker’s own good. Besides, the two men doubted that whatever had just happened with General Kenobi was as simple as a sudden shock.

“I’m afraid, Senator Amidala, that Knight Skywalker’s reclusion was for his safety as well as our own and I think it is time for you to leave.” Master Koon’s tone was calm and peaceful, even as he kept his hands on the shoulders of the younger, and shorter, Jedi master. “Master Che, I leave Knight Skywalker’s wellbeing in your good hands.”

The Twi’lek healer snorted as she moved through the tight walkway. “We’ll have to start all over at this point.”

"Just as well," Master Koon said, nodding to the two women still dressed for infiltration, "perhaps with this, you get farther than you were."

Master Che gave the two women a thorough observation, “Perhaps. If I know minds, Skywalker has more festering in his head than just a secret marriage. But, at least, it’ll give me a place to pry.”

Padme gasped and stepped to confront the healer, but Dorme pulled her lady back. "Lady of Grace and Mercy, Padme! All those pregnancy hormones are going to your head! This wasn't a smart move when you planned it and attacking a Jedi Master Healer just because she says something offensive isn't any better!"

Obi-Wan stiffened where he’d been under Master Koon’s talons. He’d been more focused on Palpatine than on her when the medics had taken care of her in the streets. “Pregnancy?”

Padme lifted her chin defiantly, “Twins. A blessing from the Mother.”

"Truly," Obi-Wan said with the completely wrong inflection and an extremely tight smile. His normally vibrant eyes were painfully dulled.

“Justice Hemn,” Koon motioned to a hovering night-shift guard and her trooper assistants. “Please see that Senator Amidala and her companion are seen back to their abode.”

“Of course, b- Master Koon.” The Justice gave a shallow bow.

“Come on, General.” Cody said taking one arm from the Kel Dor, letting the overwhelmed Force sensitive lean on him. “I think you could do with some tea.”

Obi-Wan’s steps stuttered, “Tea can’t heal everything, Cody.”

"General Kenobi, sir," Rex said from the Jedi’s other side. “I do believe that is heresy. Have you been teaching the shinies that, sir?”

Koon figured that the revelations could have gone better. But all told, the damage done was minimal and if Obi-Wan ever gained the peace to view the situation objectively, Plo knew that he would agree, his relationships were a small price in the face of his former student’s sanity.

That was a thought for years further down the road, though, when the pain of the betrayal no longer overshadowed the love Obi-Wan had once held for the betrayers. For when the Force bond the Jedi’d held with his student, now irreparably broken from betrayal, didn’t ache in his mind. For now, tea could, in fact, heal a number of wounds. Even when Plo himself couldn’t drink it. 

-

"Come," Yoda directed his hoverchair toward a little used meeting room off of the Healer's halls. "Healer, you need. Caffeine, I need. And sleep no one will get tonight, I fear."

“I thought I was getting tea,” Obi-Wan complained weakly, the troopers bracketing him at the low table. The psychic wound his former Padawan had dealt him was manifesting as physical disorientation for Obi-Wan and a painful throbbing in the Force for everyone else.

“Tea there is,” the old master said, “but Caff is better. Coming Young Bant is.”

“Bant?” Obi-Wan wavered as the two troopers eased him down into a cushion at the low table. “She was there?”

“I commed her, Obi-Wan.” Master Fitso said, aborting his movement when the normally placid master flinched. “No one in the Temple was going to finish the night, so it was just a matter of telling her that you needed her help. She’ll be along soon.”

“The whole temple is up?” Cody asked quietly, as Rex distracted the disoriented Jedi with preparing his tea. Arguing about the proper amount of sugar for a cup of tea. Rex insisted that anything less than three cubes was unpalatable, Obi-Wan was arguing that three cubes were going to give him cavities. It was an old argument, rehashed just about any time Cody brought his vod over for tea. That was probably the only reason Obi-Wan was responding. His argument was memorized.

"The wound Anakin dealt his Master had psychic repercussions that rippled out through the Force," Koon explained quietly. "It's unlikely that any but the youngest and most thickly shielded of our residents didn't feel it."

“Let’s not tell him that, yeah?” Cody shifted to put himself between the injured Jedi General and the few Masters of the Order who weren’t the most compassionate. Giving them his best ‘General, I _am_ the boss of you’ look. It apparently worked just as well on insensitive Jedi Masters because the gruffest of the collected settled back in their seats.

“Of course not, Commander Cody.” Koon agreed, “It will be hard enough for Obi-Wan to find a balance without misplaced guilt weighing him down.”

With that Bant hustled through the door. Relief painted across her expressive face, “Oh, Obi-Wan!”

"Hello, Bant." Obi-Wan's smile was a weak pathetic thing, "I guess you've heard?"

“Yeah, Obi.” Bant knelt before the low cushion and took his hands in hers, “let’s see what kind of damage that sleemo left.”

“What are we going to do?” Master Koth asked in the quiet silence that followed. “Skywalker took a wife!”

“I took a wife,” Ki-Adi-Mundi huffed, “I took five wives. The problem isn’t his marital status, it’s that in hiding it he became vulnerable to keeping other secrets. To crossing the line in other ways. Vokara was correct when she said it gave her something to pry at. Without compliance or intervention, the mindhealers have had no way to help Skywalker.”

“Do we want to help Skywalker?” Saesee Tiin asked a bit callously. The way he blinked slowly and carefully formed his words suggested the man was running on less sleep than even the war had made normal. “This is not the first time he has been flagrant in his disregard for the Jedi code. He is not suited to it. Why not just make him leave?”

The impromptu council turned to the man’s master to hear the alternative, but Kenobi was only present in body. His heart was ravaged by the betrayal, and all his focus was now directed internally as he and Bant worked to patch the wound that had been left. Obi-Wan had nothing to offer and the room grew heavy.

“First,” Master Koon said as he took a seat next to the clones and across from Fitso, “if nothing else, it is in our benefit to support Skywalker’s rehabilitation because if he falls and fails to regain his sanity, we will end up hunting him. The press from such a situation would kill us.” He raised a brow ridge at the other councilors, “Not to mention it’s the right thing to do?”

Fitso snorted lightly, “And the second thing?”

Plo didn’t say anything for a moment, simply taking the time to fix his drink and pour it into the special vacuum pack that habit had left in his robe pocket. Yoda had been right; caffeine and sugar were about the only way to get through this to the wrong side of dawn. “We need to carefully consider what the cost of kicking the Hero Without Fear out of the Jedi Order is. As much as we might not like it, our Jedi Generals have had a massive impact on the perception of the Order by the lay-person. On the planets untouched by war Skywalker’s heroics have greatly impacted how people see the Order.”

“What are you saying, Plo?” Windu scowled, “we can’t punish Skywalker?”

“Anakin-” Obi-Wan interrupted, coming out of his meditation with a gasp. Ignoring the intense glare of his Healer friend. “Anakin is sick. He’s fallen and it does the Order no good to set the precedent that falling is where the Council draws the line. The war has injured all of us. Those who fought have scars from droids and people alike. And of those who stayed, none have gone these years without losing someone. We need to heal. All of us.”

“And when the mindhealers deem Skywalker able to return to society, we will encourage both the Amidala-Skywalkers and the public to see it as a reunion with his longed-for family.”

Kit whistled, “Master Koon, who knew you had it in you? Manipulating people like that?”

The Kel Dor raised taloned hands, “Only the public. We will still need to convince Skywalker of the need for mindhealing and Amidala of keeping her mouth shut.”

“I wouldn’t worry too much about Senator Amidala.” Obi-Wan mentioned, leaning back in his chair and denying Cody the man’s offer to pour him more tea. “She’ll have enough trouble on her plate managing the Senate and her own people’s reprisal.” His smile was a little bitter. “Naboo does not approve of working mothers.”

When the sun was just peaking up through the buildings and the other councilors had left to catch a nap before continuing with their duties, Obi-Wan and Plo stayed seated. Cody and Rex have long since been regulated to a spare couch where they had taken the rare chance to observe workings of the High Council of the Jedi Temple. It hadn’t taken long for the men to fall asleep now that they weren’t on watch. Their peaceful breathing was the background noise to an impromptu meeting of conspiracy members.

“We need to tell them.”

“We will. I just sometimes wish we could enact the change from within.”

“Yoda will never accept the troopers, Plo. All he can see is the darkness that shrouds their creation. I. I will not live without them, Plo.” Obi-Wan rubbed at his sternum. “The days of denial did not survive the death of Qui-Gon. And now that Anakin - I will not be alone again.”

“Oh, Obi-Wan.” The older Jedi reached for his hands. “You aren’t alone, and you never will be. Jocasta has been very careful. There will be no Rule of Attachment in our Order. You aren’t the only one who aches for precious people.”

“What do you think Ahsoka will do? Anakin is her master.”

“Skywalker is not even master of himself at the moment,” Plo snorted, “And she is even more deeply invested in this than we are, she just doesn’t see it clearly yet. Besides, could you imagine Ahsoka Tano without her troopers?”

Obi-Wan had to laugh because the other master was correct. The Padawan had even been caught trying to sneak Waxer and Fives in dressed as Justices. Which made the mess that currently had Knight Hemn attached to two very earnest shinies. “I should think the end of the world upon us.”

“Exactly. Try not to worry. We have everything in hand.”

-

Perhaps it hadn't been the best timing, but the longer the small but loving conspiracy continued to hide, the more their dissension would be a weakness to the larger Order. The longer their troopers were without protection. All but the most essential Jedi and military staff had been recalled. With Palpatine dead, Dooku captured, and Grievous's head on a spike in the Outer Rim, there was little physical fighting left. The question of what to do with the troopers was looming large in the political arena.

One more line item on the agenda of ‘dealing with the fallout’, but one that these few Jedi were more than willing to make sure did not get overlooked.

Plo could acknowledge that this time hadn’t necessarily been the best, but just yesterday he had caught another member of their esteemed Council accusing Obi-Wan that his weakness in the face of a torn bond was evidence that Skywalker’s darkness wasn’t solely contained to the irrational young man. He’d seen the High General go pale from down the hall, and he had simply had enough. He was done with hiding his shame, his fear, and his disappointment. Not to mention his own righteous anger that another of the council elevated above their brethren to guide and teach would dare say such things.

Master Windu was holding onto his temper with his fingernails. “You betrayed the Order. And your oaths. You betrayed us!”

Plo Koon stood in front of the councilor chairs with his shoulders back and his head straight. “I have an argument about the origins of the betrayal within this room, but I will refrain because regardless of who first started the war, I did not leave when we enslaved the Vod’e.”

Mace Windu was speechless, squawking like a bird and gaping unpleasantly. For a moment, Obi-Wan thought to share the image with Anakin but even just the thought of him flared the ever-present wound of his betrayal in his heart. After several months, his mindhealer appointments were down to once a week with guided meditations in between. The prognosis was good. They believed he would heal, so long as he did not suffer another psychic wound, but he didn’t know if he would ever forget it.

Regardless, the troopers would appreciate the image. 

“Please, Master Koon, you are one of the oldest members of our Order. The very best Seeker. A bulwark of wisdom,” Saesee Tiin was unusually solicitous, “See sense! Your attachment to these clones might have started out of compassion for their circumstances but it is leading you down a darkened path! Have we not argued over Knight Skywalker’s own fate these last days, as well as what brought him there?! Should we confine you to reclusion as well for being nonsensical!?”

“Master Saesee Tiin, control yourself.” Koon frowned at the Iktotchi master. “I am not out of control. I am not insane. I have not fallen. It was not love that cast Knight Skywalker into the darkness it was the lies that followed the secret. I have not broken oaths with the Jedi Order of Coruscant. As I prided myself on this, so I will keep it. I have stopped just short of lying to keep this secret, and so I stand before you now to ensure that I do not continue down this path. I have no intention of staying with the Order of Coruscant while the Rule of Attachment is enforced so militantly.”

"Not convinced you will be, that wrong this path is," Yoda spoke up a frown creasing the skin of his face. “Tell us you must, why forsake the Order you will.”

“Because war changes you.” Obi-Wan suddenly said, though he didn’t bother to stand next to Master Koon. His mind was far away from the crowded council room. “You insist on referring to the Troopers as the ‘Fett Clones’ or the ‘Kamino Troops’ without acknowledging our culpability in the enslavement of these beings.

“You did not fight as Generals. You claimed your place with the administration of the Order, as a presence within the Senate - to fight against the extension of emergency powers and the prolonging of the war. It was your right, but I never saw much results from your service.

“You’ve never been on the battlefield and felt each light of friendship and laughter, joy and camaraderie flicker out within the Force. We might talk of the impermanence of the mortal life, that like a candle is lit and extinguished - but it _feels_ like a nail on a coffin, a knife to the gut, and agonizing instant knowledge that the friend you had made was gone. And oftentimes it was for nothing.”

Master Obi-Wan Kenobi looked up at the suddenly echoing silence, as though the room had tripled in size, each master staring at Kenobi as if they’d never seen him before. “We did not survive the war. It took pieces of us with each day it waged, even when we were not on the battlefield. And to make it even one day further we sought to heal our ragged edges and sooth the empty places inside by patching them with the ragged edges and holes of our comrades in arms.

“So, say what you will, but this isn’t the wrong choice _for us_.”

“Us?” Saesee Tiin sputtered, “How many heretics are there within our Order?! How many have broken oaths? How many are traitors to the Order?”

"There is no law that requires we stay," Kit Fitso spoke up finally. He had not been a member of their conspiracy, but his viewpoint was also not a surprise. The conspiracy had been small out of a need for secrecy, but hopefully, now that it was out in the open more would join under their banner. “Just as there was no law that required a planet stay bound to the Republic. Forcing those who wish to leave, to stay, will only create dissension.”

“Perhaps there is not a law,” Master Windu agreed, once more the outwardly calm Master of the Order most saw. “But you have admitted to no longer thinking that the Order’s way is the best; I do not believe you have the best interests of the Order at heart.”

Koon blinked. He certainly hadn’t believed the ones who dissented should keep their positions in authority if they were leaving the Order, but he had expected some disbelief and attempts at persuasion before being asked to leave the council. He’d banked on being the voice of reason in the room when they brought in Anakin Skywalker. “If you believe that is necessary-”

“Oh, shut up, the both of you.” Jocasta Nu leaned forward in her seat. “Mace get the stick out of your ass. You don’t have the authority to unilaterally dismiss members of the council. You’d need a 3/4’s vote with all seats filled or evidence of criminal behavior. According to Republic standards,” she went ahead declared as Saesee Tiin opened his mouth again. “Not the ‘religious laws’ that govern the Order. And on top of that, Koon has in fact, shown himself to be a dedicated member of the Order, a popular figure in the press that has followed the war, and his only real point of dissension is the damn Rule of Attachment.”

“It’s a pivotal rule!” Mace argued. “Dissension here will grow to dissension over other things, perhaps how we deal with enemies or our younglings. It is not a distinction thin enough to wave away.”

Madam Nu waved it away anyways, “But what does it matter now? The council has already made its decision and Knight Skywalker is already waiting outside with his wife. A Council with half its members missing is not a strong place to render judgment from.”

"Half its members?!" Windu scowled, "We are losing two people. That does not make up half the council!"

“You’re losing Koon, Kenobi, Fitso, and me. Not half, but also too many to vote on a dismissal.”

Windu waved his hands as the most poised man in the Order was once again without words.

Obi-Wan leaned up in his chair to look at Kit from around a huddled Gallia. He thought she might be laughing. “You’re joining us?”

Kit didn’t look up, but also did not let his posture remain cowed. “I would not have my Bly and my Aalya’Secura go without me.”

“Huh.” He raised an eyebrow in Koon’s direction, “did you know about that?”

Koon shrugged a shoulder, “I had an idea.”

“There’s only karking twelve of us!” Windu suddenly shouted.

“If you’re so upset about it, then perhaps,” Master Plo stared the younger male down, “you should re-examine why half your council has decided to go a different way? Hmm?”

“As entertaining as this all is,” Adi said, rubbing moisture from her eyes and hiccuping a few times. “We cannot leave Skywalker waiting -well, we can’t leave Senator Amidala waiting, really. I vote they stay for now.”

Yoda raised a hand and the motion passed. “Do not agree, that you have picked the right path. But swiftly we must move on Skywalker. Take your seat, Plo Koon.”

Obi-Wan wanted to sink back into his seat in the councilor’s circle and groan. This wasn’t going to be good.

Anakin walked in with his fists clenched and his shoulders tight. He was already gearing up for a struggle and unless Mace caught him off guard, which would be as likely as snow on Tatooine, then this whole thing was going to go bad from the get-go. Not to mention the Senator that followed him in with her train of loyal ladies.

“Knight Skywalker,” the Master of the Order leaned forward at his chair. “You have some explaining to do.”

This time Obi-Wan did groan, surprisingly loud in the small quiet room and Mace Windu’s eyebrows of doom were once again directed in his direction along with all the man’s fearsome attention.

“Are you well, Master Kenobi?” He bit out.

"Fine, fine." The redhead nodded, not aiming a look in either male's direction. So, done with the backstabbing and betrayal that had made this home a prison. Though, maybe for Anakin, it had always been a prison. "Carry on."

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.” Anakin spit from between clenched teeth.

This time it was Plo who sighed from his position between Kit and Mace as he mumbled, “And Vokara had mentioned so much improvement.”

“Well, you can’t heal while under fire.” Kit replied quietly.

Their tiny corner earning a deadly glare from just about everyone physically in the room. "Master Fisto, is there anything you have to say?"

Kit ignored Mace’s implication that there really shouldn’t be anything he had to add. “Actually, I think this is the height of ridiculous.”

Yoda scowled harder and Jocasta Nu made a gasping sound as she choked on her laughter. “Do you? What then have you to say?”

Kit nodded, taking the reins of the situation that was foreshadowing explosions and blood. “Knight Skywalker, I want to thank you for your service to the Order and the Republic during the War.” Anakin blinked. “Master Healer Che has found that you’ve progressed nicely in your healing sessions and that with time you should process all of the emotion that became toxic during your exposure to the dark side.”

The young man nodded cautiously, giving his wife a quick look before he answered. A visual touchstone in a situation that had shifted fast enough to give him whiplash. “That’s my understanding as well.”

“Good,” Kit continued, completely ignoring the fact that Mace might be bleeding from biting his tongue. “So, here’s the facts as we know them: you are currently married and expecting a child with the Senator Amidala from Naboo.”

“Twins,” the knight said proudly.

“Congratulations,” the Nautolan said graciously, “I’m about to ask some very offensive questions and I would like you to think hard on your answers.” He held up a hand at the knee-jerk scowl on the knight’s face. “Those answers might not change, but think about it, please.” Kit continued when a sullen Anakin held his tongue. “Good. You have broken the Rule of Attachment in a visceral and evidenced way. Are you willing to obtain a divorce, go through a series of reparations to the Order, and agree to never willingly contact or see Padme Naberrie, also known as Padme Amidala, Senator for Naboo, for the rest of your life?”

Anakin was a sickly grey color as he swayed before the council and Amidala had been subtly restrained by two of her ladies.

“Furthermore,” Kit continued, kind in his cruelty, not lingering. “A Jedi having a child is expected to give up all parental rights or expectations to that child, or children in this case, and give them to the creche to raise. Anakin Skywalker, can you do this?”

Anakin swallowed, “No.”

Kit nodded a small smile shaping his lips. "I did not think so. You're passionate and determined, perhaps in another world or life, you might have felt accepted within the Order. But under the pale cast by Sidious in the Senate, the Order was a cold unfeeling place for you. I'm sorry about that. It has always been my home and I could ask for nothing else, but the world is large for one such as you."

"You're going to kick me out of the Order." Anakin fisted his hands. The pressure on his mech hand causing the material to squeak.

“We’re going to ask you to leave.” Kit responded with a shrug. “Skywalker- Anakin. You don’t want to be here. Most of those staying in the Order don’t want you to stay, and you’ve no intention of making reparations for your violations. It would damage the Order if the press caught wind of the Order ‘kicking you out’. But a calm statement released on the steps of the Temple that you’ve left the Order for love and family? That’s romantic and the public will love it.”

Anakin met his wife’s eyes where she stood off to the side, supposedly not involved in the proceedings. “I wanted both worlds.”

Padme shook her head, “I was willing to be second to the war. Not to your pride, Anakin.”

The young man gave a jerky nod and turned back to the Council. He had chosen Padme over them years ago, doing so now was not a surprise to anyone in the room. Even if Obi-Wan’s heart ached. “What happens now?”

“Regardless of how ill you think of us,” Master Windu drawled. “There are a fair number of students and dependents of the Order who leave each year. This is actually a procedure in place. You won’t be left to hang.”

“And my Master? My Padawan?”

“No one is keeping you from contacting them,” Master Koon offered, “but individual responses and relationships are just that - individual. I would suggest, though, that Ahsoka not find out from the press release.”

“My thanks, Masters.” The young knight bowed and when his seeking gaze was refused by his Master’s, the man bowed again and followed the Nabooian party out.

Master Windu scowled at Kit as the other members of the council gathered themselves to leave, each had tasks to accomplish for the good of the Order, even those who believed that their good meant leaving the Order.

**“** What’s wrong now, Mace?” Obi-Wan asked catching sight of the male’s face. It might not have been a particularly long day, the time only marking midday, but the Jedi General was done with just about everything to do with this room. Including Mace Windu’s inflexibility.

“Skywalker didn’t even argue! We’ve called that reckless idiot before our council many times in the years since he left your shirt tails, Kenobi, and each and every time, he argues!” Windu made a soundless gesture of exasperation and Obi-Wan shared an equally exasperated look with the Masters around him. “And now the one Master able to handle him is leaving!”

Kit shook his head, "I can ‘handle' Skywalker because I can see that he's just a sentient like we all are. He's young and passionate and he saw the Order as a prison he couldn't get out of any easier than his childhood bonds of slavery. He didn't want to be here, Mace. We just had to convince him it was okay to walk away. At some point along the line, you developed blinders toward that young man and made him the villain in your own personal heroic story."

“He fell! He attacked Kenobi! He broke the oaths he took for the Order!”

Kit opened his mouth but closed it and shook his head before he continued. “I cannot reason with you, and I don’t need to. Have a nice day, Master Windu.”

The council room slowly emptied as Mace frowned into the middle distance. Until the only one left beside him was Obi-Wan, himself.

“I know you don’t often take advice, Mace. But have you considered that you’ve been Master of the Order, too long? You and Yoda both.”

Mace blinked. “Been Master too long? I lead this Order in the path of the Light as far as I am able.”

Obi-Wan bowed as he stepped back, “but perhaps your vision of Light is not everyone’s vision of the Light.”

-

Padme stormed into the apartment without even seeing the man who opened the door. The only reason she’d been allowed to come by herself was that she’d promised Dorme she wouldn’t punch anyone who didn’t start it. Physically. Padme had promised her lady-in-waiting/bodyguard that she wouldn’t punch anyone who didn’t start a fight physically. She figured is she looked Obi-Wan in the face she would avoid the instinct to just punch him.

He’d hurt Anakin so much.

"You're a real bastard, Kenobi. A hypocrite and a bastard. I know Satine Krystz. I've heard her stories of the Jedi Padawan she fell in love with! And I've seen you with your troopers, you love them, I know you do! So, you can't hide behind that disgusting Rule of Attachment you self-righteous sleemo son-of-a-Hutt!"

Padme jerked her eyes up to glare righteously into the Jedi’s only to be face-to-chin with a Fett clone.

Never before in her life had she felt threatened by a clone, but his icy glare had her fighting not to run in the opposite direction. That look had certainly earned its nickname as a killing stare.

"Senator Amidala, you know Commander Cody, correct? Good." Kenobi's voice came from a collection of low seats where a group of Jedi were sitting sharing a tea service. "To my left is Master Plo Koon, Healer Bant Eerin, and Master Kit Fisto. To my right is Master Depa Billaba and her Padawan Caleb Dume, as well as Madam Jocasta Nu."

Padme could feel the flush of embarrassment color her cheeks. She knew the faces and names even if she wasn’t personally acquainted with them. Nevertheless, she kept her head and shoulders straight. Nothing she’d said was untrue. Meant for only a single pair of ears, but she spoke the truth, she wouldn’t take it back.

“Hmm. We’ve never met, I don’t believe.” Madam Nu said as she levered herself up gracefully from the lotus position she had taken. “Perhaps now is not the best time either. Master Fisto, would you mind escorting me back to my rooms? Master Yoda can go on all he likes about the buoyancy of the Force- my bones hurt.”

The Nautolan gave a beautiful smile as he held out his arm to the elder Jedi, “I would be delighted. I wanted to ask you a few questions about the process you used -”

The door shut behind them, but they weren’t the only ones getting up from the low table, and Padme took a deep breath. They were leaving. She would have her time to lash Obi-Wan’s hide, she could wait for it to be private.

“Caleb,” the Mon Calamari directed her attention to the young teen. “Your Master mentioned that you wanted more experience in Healing.”

“Oh,” the young boy, who was avoiding even looking in Padme’s direction, jumped to his feet. “That would be great, Healer Eerin. We lost so many Vods; I was hoping to take some extra healing classes in the next cycle.”

"Well, it's certainly one of those skills that will never do you wrong." Healer Eerin said as she led them out.

Padme turned back to the tea service. The only ones left in the room besides Obi-Wan was Master Koon and Commander Cody. They didn’t look like they were leaving. In fact, Commander Cody had poured himself a cup of tea and was settling in on a low couch. His attention firmly directed at her.

“Master Kenobi,” The Senator pulled up her most formal court manners. Dignity was facing opposition with poise and grace. Padme would be polite and courteous. It would be that much more satisfying if she needed to punch him in the face before she left. “I have a matter to discuss with you, perhaps it should be done in private?”

"You were the one who cursed him out in the doorway, Senator." Master Koon's tone was drier than her husband's homeworld. "Perhaps you should have looked to see that he was alone if the issue was so private."

She bit her tongue. As much as it galled her to admit it, the Kel Dor Jedi was right. She had spoken before she’d looked and aired her grievances to many in the room. Probably the most politically incorrect thing she’d done since she’d tackled Jesme Heminarie as a young legislator. “Alright, fine. Obi-Wan, you need to talk to Anakin. He’s not doing well.”

“If it is an issue with the Force or his emotional control, he is welcome to seek treatment from the mindhealers.” Master Koon replied in a mild placid tone.

Padme couldn’t imagine why, but she had a distinct feeling that Master Koon didn’t like her. She’d never met the male before.

“No, he’s just depressed. Hurt.” She stared at the redhead, urging her husband’s former Master to _do something_. “He’s been instructed to leave the Order, and he has, but that means he’s left everything he knows and his Master, his brother, won’t even answer his pings.”

“How ironic.” Obi-Wan murmured.

“Ironic?” She hissed, fury bubbling into her mouth mixed with stomach acid, and moved into his space. “My husband - your brother - is bleeding emotionally and you find it Ironic? What kind of sentient being are you?!”

Blue eyes stared back up at her from underneath brows of colored flame. “Anakin fell in love, years ago. Anakin got married, to you; at least three years ago. You’re pregnant with twins. You’ve known for at least four months, probably closer to six. Never once in the last four years have you even hinted to me that you were in a relationship with my student!”

The dishes on the table shook and the empty furniture hovered for a minute before dropping back to the floor. Master Koon laid a hand on Obi-Wan’s shoulder and Commander Cody was shooting the General some very concerned looks. Padme held her breath, she knew that Obi-Wan was powerful. She’d never considered what that meant.

“Anakin lied. He betrayed his oaths. He betrayed me.” He took a deep breath and sipped unconsciously from the cup in his hands when the Commander encouraged him to. “But it’s Anakin who’s hurt and I’m the hypocrite? No, Padme. I have endured Anakin Skywalker's abuse enough. I won't be returning his pings or holos for quite a while."

Padme blinked away the moisture from her eyes. “But - you’re our friend. We were going to name you godfather.”

“Were you going to tell me?” Obi-Wan asked flatly, “Or were you both going to go down in a blaze of glory and I’d wake up to a news report and a pair of children on my doorstep?” He shook his head, “We weren’t friends, not really.”

“Of course, we were!” Padme looked away from the watching gazes and swallowed back the shake in her voice. “We are! We are friends!”

“No, Senator Amidala. You can’t be a respectful friend and lie to them at the same time. Just like you can’t be both a Jedi and a husband.”

“What about the new Order?” She swallowed back sorrow and fury and the dawning realization that while she would never want to give up her family, she might have lost more than she realized in the bargain. “The one that allows attachment?”

“So far that’s just conversation.” Master Koon shook his head. “And it doesn’t change what you and your husband did. You lied and you broke oaths. Now you have to deal with it.”

The door closed behind Amidala and Obi-Wan leaned over to rest his cheek on the Kel Dorian’s shoulder. “Thank you, Plo.”

“Oh, Obi-Wan,” the older master ran gentle talons through his hair. “I wouldn’t leave you. Not to that and not now.”

Anakin Skywalker had done much damage to his Master over the years. But the brutal injuries he'd left on Obi-Wan's mind were the worst of his crimes. Plo Koon believed Kit Fisto had done the best thing for everyone involved because Anakin Skywalker could not be trusted. 

“I just don’t feel good.” Obi-Wan rubbed his temples. “I’m tired and I feel weak. I just- don’t feel good.”

"How long have you been feeling this way?" The Baran Do Sage pressed a claw-tipped hand to his friend's forehead. He did indeed feel feverish. "Commander Cody," he called out to the trooper lingering in the kitchenette to offer them some privacy. "Please call down to the Halls. Obi-Wan isn't feeling well."

“Sir.” The commander’s eyes warmed with concern for the Jedi master. He was already on his comm, contacting the Healing Halls. “Will we need a hoverchair?”

"Plo- Cody, No! There's no need for this!" Obi-Wan said, very frustrated. "I don't need a healer!"

“You never answered, my friend.” Plo distracted him. “How long have you felt like this? Weeks? Months?”

Obi-Wan bit his lip and frustrated blush could just be made out over the edges of his beard.

"Years?" Cody clarified. His eyes narrowed. Between the two of them, they levered the weak Jedi Master onto his feet. "General, why didn't you say anything?"

“Oh, Cody,” Obi-Wan huffed, leaning his head against his commander’s in a Mandalorian kiss. “It wasn’t the war. This has been going on since long before we even met. The war just sapped me of what little I had left, and then Anakin-” He sighed as Plo gently transferred his weight to fully lean on the clone commander. The door chime had sounded. Likely the healers from the hall with a chair. “And then Anakin.”

As Cody gently helped the General settle into the hoverchair he made the Master a promise. “You’re going to get better, General. We’re going to make sure of it." 


	3. Part 3

Jocasta Nu elbowed her way into the long-term healing room for Obi-Wan Kenobi. “I think I found a location!”

"Where?" Plo took the diversion. Obi-Wan had weathered some truly awful situations in his life with little more than a sadder smile and tenser shoulders. It had taken the betrayal of his student to completely break the strong man.

The Baran Do Sage had to admit he was quite proud of his little Order inside the Order. Obi-Wan's infirmary room had been a place of healing since he'd been admitted, but never a place so quiet as to let the man linger in his head, and never ever lonely. At every hour there were guests leaving their well-wishes and Cody and Rex were taking turns sleeping beside the bed.

Obi-Wan would have time to process and heal from Skywalker's betrayal. Plo would not stand for the man to be crippled by this wound. This would be the last time Anakin Skywalker hurt his master. Now the Jedi needed a distraction, and this sounded like the perfect thing.

"A new home?" Obi-Wan asked offering a warm but weak smile.

"An old home, more like." Madam Nu grinned. "Therapia was inside the Old Republic space but fell into disrepair once the Order was moved to Coruscant and of course, the current Republic borders place it outside their jurisdiction. Which could be good or bad."

"I remember that planet." Master Tholme said as he edged in beside Shaak Ti. "Master Tyyvokka and I went on a scouting trip there when I was still a young Padawan. A pleasant planet, with an oxygen-rich atmosphere and abundant biodiversity. It should serve _most_ of us well." 

Plo met the younger master's cheeky grin with a raised brow ridge. "I imagine that even the best planet couldn’t have a biome perfect for me as well as the rest of our aliit. It's the affliction I endure for my oxygen-breathing Ads."

"Thanks, Buir." Commander Cody said dryly.

Rex turned a deadpan stare at his vod, "Don't quit your day job."

Obi-Wan scrolled through some paperwork for the GAR that he needed to sign off on, giggling lightly. "That was great."

Shaak started a small discussion with Tholme in the corner where Obi-Wan couldn't easily see her concern for him. Jocasta tucked the blankets back in around the reclining redhead and Depa teasingly stole the man's padd. Obi-Wan had always had a tough constitution, it was concerning that the Master wasn't bouncing back from this. Disconcerting to see him still laid out in the healing halls. Though perhaps that was the problem, Shaak thought as she asked idle questions of what form their new colony might take. Obi-Wan had gotten in the habit of ignoring his body’s complaints and everyone else had taken for granted just how strong and capable the youngest High Councilor was. Now this psychic injury wasn’t letting him pretend.

The room was just coming to a peaceful status quo when the doors to the infirmary room burst open and Anakin Skywalker filled the doorway with his overwhelming presence.

"I'm sorry, Master Obi." Ahsoka fretted from behind her former training master. "I thought Skyguy deserved to know you were in the healing halls. I didn't think he'd storm in!"

"Obi-Wan is my master. Of course, I have I right to know about his health." The tall man kept reaching out to touch Obi-Wan before aborting the gesture. "I can't believe you didn't call me yourself, Obi-Wan!"

"Anakin," He sighed, and cast his look about the crowded room. Jedi Masters, Knights, and Padawans watching the human disaster that was Anakin Skywalker. Whatever was going to happen next, Obi-Wan wanted as few witnesses as possible. "I'm so thankful you all thought to come and see me, but could Anakin and I receive some privacy?"

Most of the Jedi and troopers in the room filed out with quiet well wishes but Caleb Dume, who'd been sitting in a corner of the room doing his interstellar navigation homework with increasing frustration glared up at the Hero Without Fear. Anakin glared back.

"What?"

"You're a real bastard son of a longneck," Caleb said and Obi-Wan nearly choked in his bed and Plo turned to look incredulously at the small padawan. "You like to think you're the victim in all of this, but I bet you haven't even considered how many people you hurt with your choices."

"Listen, pipsqueak-" Anakin fisted his hands and loomed over the kid.

"Caleb, perhaps Ahsoka can help with your homework?" Plo nodded to the Togruta padawan still fretting. Unsure if she wanted to leave so she wouldn't have to see her lineage explode, or if she should stay and fight for it. "Ahsoka, Caleb is having particular difficulty with the free-choice interstellar navigation calculation. You're doing quite well in that field, aren't you?"

The Togruta chuckled weakly still watching the two human men in their stare down as she reached for Caleb's padd. "Courtesy of traveling with the 501st. I think I complained once about the interstellar navigation course; Skyguy had me doing all the calculations for the ship movements for weeks afterward."

"Well you learned, didn't you?" Anakin smirked, folding his arms. "Never forgot to calculate for hyperlane drift with lives on the line."

Caleb frowned and muttered something decidedly unpleasant as he led the older padawan from the room. "Come on, 'Soka. You can show me what I'm missing."

Anakin gave a sharp-edged smile and thrust a thumb backward, "I get the feeling that kid doesn't like me."

"You're not exactly everyone's favorite person at the moment." Obi-Wan sighed. "What do you want, Anakin?"

The tall man frowned and let his arms fall from their guarded position. "You're my master, Obi-Wan. You're in the healing halls, I came to see you. Not to mention you haven't been returning my messages or answering my pings."

"No, I haven't." Obi-Wan admitted, picking at a loose fiber on the bedsheets. He knew all it would take to have Plo interrupt would be a single nudge of the Force. The Kel Dor would take control and maybe Obi-Wan wouldn't have to face his biggest failure until they were leaving orbit for their new home. Maybe he'd never have to face Anakin again.

No one had ever called Obi-Wan a coward, though, and they weren't going to start now. "What do you want, Anakin?"

The tall man frowned, stepping forward as though to loom over the laying Jedi Master. If he was looking to leverage his height as intimidation, he really should have known better. Obi-Wan had spent the vast majority of his life surrounded by people taller than him. He'd grown inert over time to the imbalance of having to look up at his opponent.

"I want you to talk to me again.” Anakin huffed, pouting like a child. “I fell in love, Obi-Wan. Even you’ve done that.”

“Surprising as it may seem, Skywalker,” Plo said blandly, “given your opinion of us. Most Jedi fall into and out of love several times over their lives. The world doesn’t stop because of love.”

Anakin blinked mutely at the Jedi Master and turned to Obi-Wan, “What do you want me to do? It’s killing me that you won’t talk to me.”

“It’s killing you?” Obi-Wan shook his head, wondering not for the first time where the sweet and compassionate child from Tatooine had gone. “Senator Amidala was just here. She yelled at me about you, and she heard my reasons then. Did you speak with your _wife_ , Anakin? Or was she too much of a coward to say anything?”

“My wife is not a coward!” The young man decried, static building in the room as the tension grew and the Force reacted.

“Control yourself, Skywalker.” Koon frowned, “before I drag you out of here by your ear. Your temper has no place in the halls of healing.”

“No place-?” Anakin took a deep breath and hunched in. “I don’t understand why you’ve abandoned me!?”

“Little Rain Gods! Not everything is about you, you self-centered child!”

Anakin blinked in shock. In all his days as an unruly Padawan and impetuous Knight-General working with Obi-Wan, the other man had never raised his voice with him. The redhead might walk out of the room, but he’d never raised his voice.

“I took you in when my Master asked me too. I raised you, I taught you, I trusted you! And always you threw it back in my face.” Obi-Wan struggled in the hospital bed and Plo reached over with a calming hand, adjusting the angle of the back higher. “Over and over again I defended you against the Council. Repeatedly I explained what you needed to change to better follow the Jedi way. How many times did you promise you would?

“You lied, Anakin!” Obi-Wan exploded. “You lied. You took oaths you never intended to keep. You fomented discontent and rebellion within the Order. You betrayed me.”

Anakin had paled, his eyes darting around the room, landing on Obi-Wan and jerking off again. Plo watched him take an unconscious step back.

“No, I’m not talking to you. I’m not responding to your pings. You tore out my heart and have decried as useless and disgusting my entire life’s work. And frankly, I think you and Amidala should consider someone else as Godparent to your kids.” Obi-Wan stared straight into his former student’s eyes. “Because I have come terrifyingly close to hating you, and no child deserves to grow up under that.”

Anakin stumbled; his knees had gone weak. “You said you’d always love me. That I was your brother!”

“You hurt me. And I don’t know if it can heal.” Obi-Wan sank back on the bed and turned away from the devastated look on Skywalker’s face. “Just go away, Anakin. You wanted your wife and your kids, a life away from war and the Order, now you have it. Go enjoy it and leave me alone.”

Obi-Wan lets the bed linens soak up the moisture leaking from his eyes even as he hears the door open and shut. Strong, familiar, hands tipped with talons combed through his hair. “He doesn’t even see how much damage he’s done!”

"Such is the way of love." Plo spoke evenly, "You know this Obi-Wan. You've felt it, I know you have. The immediacy and euphoria of the emotion cloud the senses to other options and often to the necessary and final actions needed to resolve a problem. It is why past members of the Order clung so tightly to the Rule of Attachment."

“Are we naive to assume we can hold attachments and not face this?”

“Oh, Obi-Wan.” Plo crooned to the upset man. “We already do. We feel love and affection and create lifelong friendships and partner bonds. What our Order will have to do is cling tightly to the honor that held out so long for both us and the Vod’e.”

“I understand; just as we have lost Vod’e who sought to protect us with their lives, in the future of our Order we will place the good of the many first because of our attachment.”

“Because of our affection.” Plo corrected lightly. “We are of two organizations, stronger together than apart and we know it. We’ve seen it.”

“Thank you for being here, Plo.” Obi-Wan finally whispered as his eyes closed and his breathing deepened.

“I’ll always be here, my friend.” Plo whispered as he eased himself out of supporting the other Jedi.

Caleb was still sitting in the hall with his interstellar navigation homework. Choosing to navigate to Kamino had the small Padawan frowning. Now, however, Ahsoka sat dropping next to him and Rex and Cody sat bracketing the door on the other side of the hall.

“How is he?” Rex asked, throwing down a dangerously good hand at the sabacc game he and the High Marshall were playing.

“He will get better,” Plo asserted, “But his heart hurts and that will only heal with time and support.”

"He'll get that." Cody murmured, frowning more at the logistical problem than his cards. He was still winning. "It'll be harder to keep them away than not."

"Except Master Anakin," Ahsoka frowned. "I'm sorry that I said anything."

“You can’t do that Commander.” Rex placed his cards face down to turn to her. “You thought you were doing the right thing, informing someone you love that someone they love is in trouble. You didn’t know that General Skywalker was what put General Kenobi in trouble. Or that he would have such blinders to what he was told.”

“Face it Vod,” Cody pointed at his brother, “Your General’s situational awareness sucks when it comes to anything that isn’t trying to kill him.”

Rex made a face but nodded, “True.”

“I’m scared,” The older Padawan finally admitted into the hallway, the only ones listening already knew the position she’d been put in. “What’s going to happen now?”

"If you want," Master Koon said kneeling before the young Togruta, "You can certainly stay in Coruscant. You'd be near Skywalker and his family, and with your years in the field and learning under Master Kenobi and Yoda, any number of Knights would be willing to take you in."

Already Ahsoka was shaking her head. “I love Skyguy, I do. But he didn’t just hurt Master Obi. He hurt me too. I’ve been their Padawan too long. I would have too many flaws for a Temple Knight to try to adapt to or train me out of. And I - I don’t want to leave my Vod’e.”

Rex leaned across the hallway and took hold of the young Togruta, pulling her over with a firm grip on her arm. "Listen, vod'ika; we'll always be family and if you want to follow then there's a bed in our barracks waiting for you - but you need to stop and think it over." He scrunched up his nose, "Meditate on it. But decide because it's best for you, not because you think you must make General Kenobi feel better or you have to atone for General Skywalker's insanity. Do what's best for Ahsoka."

“I might not know what that is.” She whispered.

“I can help with that,” And the elder Jedi Master held out his hands to the still-small form of the one he’d Found. “I trust you to take care of Master Kenobi, boys.”

"Oh, there's no one better to leave him to, General Buir." Cody remarked, already back to his game. "You just take care of ‘Soka."

-

Bail Organa was a good friend. A very good friend. Obi-Wan had been roused from his sleep by an urgent message from the Alderaan Senator. The delegation from Naboo was going to release a statement about the Chancellor. It was the first item on the agenda for the day’s Senate session.

As close allies and frequently members of the same coalitions, Amidala had personally briefed the Senator from Alderaan. Who had immediately pinged the one man he knew would know exactly what was going on.

So, for the second time in a month, only days after Obi-Wan had been released from the healing halls, Skywalker and Amidala had masters of the Jedi High Council up on the wrong side of dawn to sort out the mess the two had made - which they didn’t care about.

Obi-Wan was surprised. The Council had been sitting on the truth about the Chancellor because they weren’t sure how to address the knowledge of his state as the Sith Lord. People were going to panic. Haran, the _Separatists_ were going to panic. Amidala was a consummate politician, very few times had Obi-Wan observe her do anything as reckless or ill-conceived as this.

“What is your plan?” Bail asked quietly, observing the chaos of the Senate from the safety of the Alderaan Pod. And from behind the obvious presence of a unit of clone troopers all bedecked in 212th orange. “You do have a plan, correct?”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” The Jedi remarked blandly, even as several troopers snorted in unison. “Quiet you.”

“Which one?”

Obi-Wan waved a purposefully dramatic hand. “All of you. You were all thinking it.”

"Pretty sure you just proved their point, my friend." Bail said, trying to contain his smile as the well-put-together Negotiator blinked. "The plan?"

“Unfortunately for you and Alderaan,” Obi-Wan admitted, “my business in the aftermath of the shock will be to push for the emancipation of the Vod’e An. Your coalition is ready for that, yes?”

“It was.” The Senator from Alderaan offered his friend a glass of wine, “but my plan relied on Amidala’s popularity and persuasion. Now, however, she’s clearly on her own agenda.”

“I don’t think you need to worry too much.” Commander Cody commented, the only trooper not wearing his helmet. “You have the Negotiator, after all.”

“It’s your freedom,” the Alderaan Senator questioned, “you and your brothers; aren’t you worried?”

“If the Senate doesn’t accept it, then we haven’t actually lost anything.” The trooper nodded his head to the Jedi, “I trust the General. Besides, this is only the most peaceful option on the table. It’s not the only option on the table.”

Alderaan had not been to war in living memory. Bail had done negotiations on planets torn by disaster and strife, but he wasn’t the powerful orator or negotiator that any planet wanted to have at the table in such a situation. His strength was as a bureaucrat. It scared him to think about what other options the Vod’e An, a highly trained Mandalorian military, might contemplate if the Senate didn’t remove its head from its ass.

Mon Mothma presided over the Senate as temporary Chancellor while the investigation into the Chancellor’s death was conducted. By Republic charter, a Chancellor who leaves the office under suspicious circumstances must be investigated before the new Chancellor can be voted on or sworn in.

There might have been a situation centuries ago, where a vote on Chancellor was tied until one option poisoned the other for the seat.

“The delegation from Naboo has the floor,” Mon Mothma stated and the pod with Senator Amidala and her party, which now included her secret husband former Jedi-General Skywalker moved to the front of the room. Holocams and mics picked up her image and voice to fling to the many pods in the room.

"Showtime," one of the troopers whispered, taking the General’s robes as Obi-Wan stood.

“My fellow Senators and gentle-citizens of the Republic,” Amidala said stridently. “I bring evidence before our congress that we have been terribly deceived and have ourselves perpetuated a grave offense.”

Obi-Wan had to give the woman this much, she was a truly gifted speaker. The Senator for Naboo exposed before the Senate the entirety of the crimes and actions of former Supreme Chancellor Palpatine - calling him Sidious and creating a narrative where none of the unknowing participants of Sidious crimes were blamed. They were simply all victims of the Sith Lord pulling the strings.

It was stirring. It was terrifying. Padme Amidala had the Senate eating out of the palm of her hand. She called for a swift reduction in the emergency powers of the Chancellor and hoped that her fellow Senators might see sense. That they could reach out to the Separatists and sue for peace.

“But what of the Fett Clones?” One representative called out. "With this evidence, it is clear that the Sith orchestrate this entire war, but certainly they are a dangerous product in this time of detente. Something must be done with them."

“Certainly, you mean to give them a reason to put down their weapons?” Obi-Wan spoke even as one of his troopers took over driving the pod. “To rightfully act as citizens of the Republic without the restrictions and oppression that the Sith Lord desired for them.”

The representative from Kamino moved forward, "They are the product of Kamino, let them be returned to Kamino."

“Kamino’s policy of full-body cloning is an issue of contention still under discussion within this body.” Bail cut in.

“Beyond that,” Obi-Wan leaned against the barrier, “the troopers raised by Kamino are bought and paid for, through those remaining within incubation tubes. Certainly Kamino has no use for an army of ‘used product’?”

Obi-Wan could tell from the deepening gloom in the force that the Kamino representative did not appreciate such obvious maneuvering. The troopers behind him shifted - picking up on minuscule shifts within their micro-expressions, a skill which had prolonged their lives within the rainy city and served them well with their Jedi generals.

“I for one,” called the senator from Rhee, “believe it to be in the best interest of us all to free the Troops from Kamino from their conscripted service. Surely after so much blood and death, they cannot want more war? Let us free them so that we have more incentive to end this war.”

“But what of the Separatists? What if they do not want peace?”

“You would trust a military created by Sith with your freedom?”

“{Anything that opposes Sidious’s plans sounds good for my health},” the Senator from Kashyyk growled in morbid humor. “{Good for the health of all of us.}”

“We have been the heroes and villains of planets caught in the middle of this symphony of hate and anger.” Obi-Wan entreated, “Give us our freedom. Let us help make peace without blasters. Free the troops from Kamino.”

“Let us call for a vote!” Amidala cried out in the upsurge of sentiment sweeping the Senate. “Let us strike down even the memory of Sidious and fling from our shoulders the darkness of injustice he has draped there!”

The delegation from Kashyyk roared out their agreement and votes went up across the pods.

Refusing to hold his breath, or shape the Vod’e ward against evil, Obi-Wan singled a trooper near the back of the Alderaan pod. Digits was a specialist in intelligence and his job now was to record the names and votes of each planet in the Senate. Naboo had done well, and their allies were at their most powerful at this moment for never having capitulated to the Sith Lord, but this righteous high would not last. A good General did everything in his power to not leave enemies at his back. It didn’t take a genius to know that those so outspoken today against the Vod’e might be even more dangerous against them in the future. A list of those names and planets to watch would not be unwise. 

“The vote has passed.” Bail gave a relieved smile, the relaxation of his face throwing off ten years of stress and politics. “The Vod’e An have their freedom. And Naboo has shown the world what wretched human being the Chancellor actually was.”

“We did win a great battle today.” Obi-Wan gave a broad smile as he pulled away from the Pod edge. “The war isn’t won, not yet. But the fight for their freedom has started.”

Bail gave a bemused shake of his head. “You can’t just be victorious, can you Obi-Wan? You’re constantly thinking of the next fight. You told me you were tired of war, when are you going to stop?”

“It’s what makes him a good general.” Commander Cody said, stepping forward. Covertly taking his general’s elbow and escorting him towards the back of the Pod, waiting out the general pandemonium to exit. “But don’t worry, we’ll take care of him.”

Bail raised a brow, “In a hurry? You won the day, I thought we could celebrate?”

“I have an invitation to give to the Naboo delegation.” Obi-Wan grimaced. He pointed back at his friend as his over-cautious troopers hustled him out. “But we should definitely make plans to celebrate!”

"This way, ser." Beast said, splitting the crowds with his intimidating form. “Naboo has a reserved meeting room in the left wing. They should be there now.”

“And how you know that, Beast?” The general asked with a raised brow. “Not spying, certainly?”

“Of course not, Sir.” Trooper Beast joked, opening the door for the High General. “My Vod is sharing bunk space with a natural born in the Naboo embassy’s delegation.”

“Hmm. Good for him.”

Obi-Wan walked through the door with little trepidation. It was certainly his first meet up with Anakin since their whole world blew up, but after weeks of careful observation and mindhealing, all accounts point to Anakin being quite stable. Besides, the delegation from Naboo wasn’t going to let him ruin their reputation as a peaceful people. . . Maybe.

“Obi-Wan!” Anakin stood from his seat, next to his much more pregnant wife - then the last time Obi-Wan had seen the woman - making to move forward but for the hand of the Senator on his arm.

“Master Kenobi,” the Senator’s eyes were like ice and her tone sharp enough to cut Christophsian glass. “What can the Naboo delegation do for you?”

“Absolutely nothing.” The Jedi master replied with a raised brow. “Though, given the manner in which the Naboo delegation decided to air information confidential to an ongoing investigation being attended jointly by both CorSec and Jedi Judicial; I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re pinged by them sometime soon.”

Under at least two layers of cosmetic paint, Amidala flushed, and in his peripheral vision, Dorme looked away.

“That is not your business.” Amidala replied, “So why are you here?”

“I have an invitation for Ser Skywalker.” Obi-Wan set the holodisc on a nearby table to be picked up later. “It is not from me.” Obi-Wan clarified at their shuttered expressions and frozen gaze. “Rather, the proto-council of the new Order has extended an invitation to Anakin Skywalker out of … compassion.”

“Compassion?” Amidala frowned, “What compassion?”

“The compassion to acknowledge that while Ser Skywalker must take responsibility for his actions, they were not fully within his control.” Obi-Wan refused to pause and show weakness. He might be coming to term with had happened between the three of them, but he wasn’t ready to forgive. And he was pretty sure they weren’t either. “There is a position within this new Order for Anakin Skywalker, former-general and former-Jedi knight if he wants it - but it is not without stipulations or caveats.”

“What types of stipulations?” Amidala scowled, tugging her husband back to her side. “Anakin isn’t leaving me!”

Obi-Wan didn’t shrug, but he did raise a brow. “That’s his choice, and the details are all on the disc. I’m just the messenger.” He bowed slightly lightly to the Naboo Senator. “May the Force be with you.”

“W-wait! Obi-Wan!” Anakin called after him. And Obi-Wan had to stop and turn back, regardless of the vod’e growing uncomfortable in the entryway, as much as Anakin had hurt him the Master still loved his Padawan.

“What, Anakin?”

"The Conspiracy. The chips." The young man fairly wrung his hands, "why didn't you tell me?"

Obi-Wan had to shrug and admit, "I didn't trust you. You couldn't be discrete in your dalliance. You couldn't keep your mouth shut from the people you trusted, regardless of how sensitive the information." He hesitated. As much as it was true, he didn't want to twist the knife. "Have you considered how many died because you leaked information to the Chancellor, who told it to Grievous and Dooku?"

Amidala gasped in her little throne, and the former Jedi General moaned.

“Why- why didn’t you tell me?” Anakin gasped.

“It’s still my fault?” Obi-Wan arched an incredulous brow. “You’re not a stupid man, Anakin. You work with machines; you know cause and effect. You were a knight grown who never had to learn the consequences of his actions-”

“You never taught me!” Anakin shouted.

"You never karking listened!" Obi-Wan hissed right back at him. "You self-absorbed vain man-child. I spoke and spoke and spoke in love and compassion. Telling you repeatedly how to fix your behavior, how to grow as a Jedi! And all you ever did was spew hate back! Well, guess what Anakin? I'm not stupid either! You never listened, so eventually, I stopped talking. And it turned out just as well, didn't it? The conspiracy? The chips? That never would have been successful if you'd known about it!"

The two Jedi heaved breaths. Anakin looked furious, the way he always had if Obi-Wan admitted it. The troopers had closed the door at some point, but Amidala and her entourage were staring as though shocked that Jedi were people like any other sentient. Obi-Wan took a step back and then another.

“Congratulations on your marriage, Skywalker.” Obi-Wan gave an abbreviated bow. “I hope you have many happy years together.”

“What about Ahsoka?” The younger man finally asked. Obi-Wan only inches for the doorway now. “What is she planning?”

“Maybe you should ask her.”

It was hard to walk away. Obi-Wan kept waiting for responses and signs that the power couple of the Naboo wasn’t going to make. He kept waiting for an apology. He kept waiting for more. He kept waiting to feel guilty, to miss them. Anakin and Padme had left him waiting long enough. All he really felt now was tired and empty.

His troopers were waiting on the other side.

“Didn’t sound like it went too well.” Cody asked as the Jedi Master caught his breath in a near-empty corridor.

“It didn’t.” Obi-Wan brushed off his robes. “Anakin’s not going to take it.”

“There was always a good chance of that.” Cody said, a frown creasing his brow. “He’s got a wife and kids, here. Not many brothers would forgive him for giving that up. And even fewer are willing to forgive him for hurting you.”

The Jedi Master paused, “You mean you won’t forgive him for hurting me.”

“Rex is seeing a mindhealer," Cody admitted as he sent the other troopers to secure the area around their transport. "He was there that night in the hall when the General almost struck you with lightning, sir." Cody shook his head, "He can’t quite figure out how to reconcile the love he felt for his general and the danger he knows Skywalker poses to most everything the man touches.”

“Be sure to tell Rex, if he figures it out to share it with me.”

-

Plo was pleased. Perhaps this was not the ending he had envisioned when this small conspiracy began, but it was also not an ending he was unhappy with. Jedi of the Coruscant Temple are taught that only the Sith deal in absolutes. Yet as the centuries had piled on the Temple’s definitions had grown stricter, more rigid and less adaptable.

Until the desolation of the Jedi was averted by the width of a hair.

The Baran Do Sage had been gifted with the sight of what was to happen in any number of futures had he not moved forward with his plan. A future darker than the Sith wars, begun with the complete betrayal of two people and the death of thousands of innocent lights.

No. This was not the vision he’d wished for when he started, but there were many things here better than that. And perhaps, who knew, the Galaxy may yet see the reconciliation of the Jedi.

“Buir! Buir!” A small mob of younglings of all ages and many species ran up to the meadow where Plo Koon, eldest among the Temple of Therapia, held his classes.

“Ad’ike,” He greeted as warm, happy, small bodies piled in around him. Each unique in the light even if some of their faces start out the same. “What shall we learn of the Force today?”

And gently, the Sage led his children into a meditation on the wonders of the diversity of all life. He couldn’t imagine a much better life than this.

-

Depa sat cradling her Padawan in the lee of the old Waiting Tree. The tree was a massive living entity that gave off the great sensation of contented anticipation. As though the beautiful tree had known all along that the temple had not been abandoned, simply waiting for its next inhabitants.

This whole world that they’d found was like that, a bounty of beauty and safety and happiness that had simply been waiting for them to find it.

“I’m happy.” Caleb said, coming out of his meditation. “I’m really, really, happy, Master Depa.”

“I’m so glad, Caleb.” She hugged her boy close in a way the Temple of Coruscant would have never allowed. “So, so glad.”

“Are you happy, Master Depa?” Caleb asked, squirming in her lap so that he could see her.

“I am.” She gave him a playfully suspicious look, “What makes you think I’m not?”

“Well,” He drawled, a rosy blush starting on his cheeks as he looked anywhere but at his master. “I made plans to stay with ‘Soka and Master Obi-Wan because Grey’s been back a week already and you deserve to enjoy time with him.”

Depa was delighted that all she could do was laugh, “Oh, Caleb, you didn’t have to do that!” She hugged her boy close. “But thank you very much.”

Caleb shrugged, "Stance said that making explosions with your cyare is special and easier when there are no vod'ika or ad'ika underfoot."

She shrugged with a blush. Compared to much of the Galaxy, Jedi were particularly blunt and honest with their younglings about sexual intimacy, health, and procreation. Not quite as much as the troopers though. The Jedi were hard to shock and offend, but many a refugee had been uncomfortable with the open and honest dialogue the two majority groups had. Many had found that it was too much for them, this whole-hearted blunt honesty about everything from sex to politics. They arrived only to turn around and leave again, but that was their choice and their right.

“Thank you, Caleb.”

-

“How did it go?” Obi-Wan asked after dinner. A light meal of finger foods that they had eaten around the earthworks house’s central fireplace.

"Good enough," Rex said, closing the shutters so they could turn the air circulator on. "The people you put us in contact with came through and the products sold at a good price." He shrugged, "we lost a lot of the fruit convincing people to try it, but Tiny and Crawler from the 102nd already have a long list of people who want another taste."

"No trouble though?" Obi-Wan frowned just a little. He was happy here on the planet. He enjoyed spending his morning teaching saber classes to those who wanted to learn. They'd had to move from one of the smaller gardens to the front hall, the long stone floor surrounded by colonnades and open to the rain or the shine because once people knew force sensitivity helped but wasn't required, everyone had wanted to join.

Obi-Wan didn’t mind. They had decided, Jedi and Vod’e that they were two halves of one group and that force sensitivity was never going to separate them. Which meant that more and more of the stubborn parents of the galaxy were landing on their planet asking about joining their communities; because giving up their children wasn’t required on Therapia. Not when you were willing to settle down here.

“Someone at the Marsh-el space market make trouble for us?” Cody snorted, “We’d taken over a hundred Vod’e. Some shiny, but a lot of veteran brothers. They’d have to be insane to want to take that on.”

Obi-Wan offered a dry look, “that doesn’t actually mean there was no trouble.”

Rex snorted, leaning in to leave a kiss on the Jedi’s cheek. “It was fine. _Naasade bes_ _’bavar r’linibar._ ”

Cody bit back a smirk as Obi-Wan patted the commander of the 501st on his cheek, “That’s not as reassuring as you think it is, dear.”

Ahsoka and Caleb, still sitting comfortably at the fire pit laughed themselves sick.

Yes. Obi-Wan smirked as his two closest brothers bantered about their trip. This wasn’t the life he’d ever thought he’d live. But that didn’t make it a bad one.

-

Mace Windu sat stiffly in the receiving room of Skywalker-Amidala household on Coruscant. Waiting to be told why he had been asked to come.

"Master Windu," the Senator finally began, setting down her teacup. "I must admit that I have let my personal feeling about the situation with Obi- Master Kenobi, and the Order's treatment of my husband to cloud my judgment."

“You are a skilled politician,” Mace settled on, “As far as the Order is aware, you have continued to be a woman in support of the Light in the Galaxy. With the release of much of the army and cessation of the war, you have worked hard to ensure that the Senate doesn’t turn greedy with their victory.”

“They won by default.” Disgust thick in her voice, “As far as I or the Loyalist party is concerned, the Senate hasn’t won anything. And the Republic has no right to ask for reparations past a certain standard.”

“I agree.”

Amidala nodded regally, before offering the man a second cup of tea. Mace refused politely. Tea was not his preferred taste and Obi-Wan was the only one who could make him enjoy more than one.

“Why am I here, Senator?”

“I don’t want to give up my children.” The woman finally admitted, “but it makes me deeply uncomfortable to ask for assistance from the Temple.”

“We felt them in the Force.” Mace admitted. “They are shining Lights. Your husband shields them?”

“Yes,” She said woodenly, “there was an incident with a Cowa-Crow trying to break the nursery window to get at them. We had no choice.”

“There is little natural Force on Coruscant,” Mace explained carefully, “anything as bright as the strong lights of your children would be tempting.”

“We hired a contingent of Vod’e from Therapia. They’ll be here next week.” Amidala clenched her hands, “Veterans of the 501st, I believe. Anakin handled it.”

Mace briefly let the grief he felt burn his heart before he released it into the Force. The men he knew were not dead. His friends were just parted from him, and it had been by his choice. “How can the Order help?”

“The twins are going to need training.” Amidala admitted, “but I am not willing to let the Temple keep them.”

Mace bit back the first, second, and third things he wanted to say. For the last time in a long list of incidences, incidences that had simply grown faster these past few months, Mace regretted accepting the position of Master of the Order so many years ago. It was a damn hard position to get out of. "Most younglings come to the Temple between two and four years of age. Everything from their chores to their games and lessons is focused to teach them the skills they will need to control the Force."

“Anakin admitted that.” She nodded, “Said it was the hardest part of being new to the Temple. Everyone had years of more training than he did. I- I don’t want my children to feel that way.”

“As long as I have been at the Temple, we have never taught children from outside the Temple.” Mace knew he was stepping on weak ground. “Have you considered the Temple at Therapia? It is my understanding that they accept anyone willing to learn with an open mind.”

The Senator took a deep breath. “They are growing quite rapidly, the Temple at Therapia.”

“Yes,” Mace said softly. Remembering his last holocall to Plo Koon. “I would not be surprised if even within a generation they become the foremost of the Jedi Temples.”

Amidala blinked shocked eyes. “I see.”

Mace shook his head, a thousand - a hundred thousand - shatterpoints had changed just in the last few months. He didn’t see how anyone could. “I don’t think you do.” He stood gracefully and bowed to the seated Senator. “I will speak with the creche masters and the youngling teachers. If we cannot accept your children as day students than there may be other options.”

He hesitated, “Amidala. Can I ask why Skywalker isn’t teaching them?”

She snorted. “Anakin is stable and growing stronger, but he worries that he will teach his children poorly even as he tries to remember what his master taught him. I would like my home to be peaceful, Master Windu. And easing that stress from Anakin’s shoulders is something I can do.”

He bowed again. “May the Force be with you, Senator Amidala.”

“May the Force be with you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Naasade bes’bavar r’linibar = no need to call the cavalry


End file.
